


Dreams of Paradise

by Sky_Cloudtide



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: AU, Creative Liberties, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Swearing, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, canon until start of season 2, past and future hopping, they deserve to be happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24250495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sky_Cloudtide/pseuds/Sky_Cloudtide
Summary: The Sohma family's lives are forever changed after summer vacation. Unable to live with the guilt, Kyo and Yuki look to the past, to find a way to fix the treasure they have lost.
Relationships: Honda Tohru/Sohma Kyou
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	1. Prologue - Ocean's Roar

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to be on a whim and here we are a few days later XD I hope this fic doesn't make me hate the sea, as I love living by the ocean.   
> Ocean: *waves*  
> Me: *runs into the hermit hole*  
> Longer chapters, shorter chapters? Let's see where the muse rides.  
> Hope you enjoy!

Dreams of Paradise

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Prologue - Ocean’s Roar

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The only thing he could hear was the pounding of the waves.

Waves that were as wild as mountain rivers, rippling and crashing upon the shore with the wrath of the gods.

He stood on the shore, feet rooted into the sand until it hurt, keeping himself held in place.

Eyes scanning through the torrent.

The blue sky above spoke a lie, one of grace and serenity.

This wasn’t paradise; it was fucking _hell._

His heart thudded. Damn he hated the ocean. Every cell in his body was screaming at him to run the other way.

But what other choice did he have?

He had hesitated once before… and…

_I’ll never forgive you._

Before he would regret anything fucking else, he plunged headfirst in the current, his world becoming a vortex of blue and green and white and her gentle, gentle smile.

He _had_ to save her.

* * *

He hated the ocean. If he could pull a plug and send the waters on their merry way, he would.

There was a sliminess to the sea. Showers and baths were efficient or relaxing. But why would anyone willingly step into the waters that tried to sweep you away? Tried to drown you?

Kyo Sohma shuddered. No. Thanks.

But when the annoying rabbit had come into his room telling him about a damn vacation that could get him away from the rainy season, he had taken up the offer. Exchange one accursed form of water for another.

Or that’s why he had decided to come on the vacation, he constantly told himself.

He needed to unwind. Let off some steam. He had been finding it tedious to focus. At the dojo, the one place where he punched with a breath in, punched with a breath out, he found a natural rhythm, his body finding a way to channel the tension and anger that had bubbled up within. From watching the damn rat talking to Tohru to the fucking dog simpering and begging her for breakfast. Tohru obliged but she wasn’t a slave. It pissed him off she listened to those bastards.

That she could be such a space cadet and so damn happy all the time.

But Kyo saw.

He saw when Tohru was angry. He saw when Tohru was stressed. He saw Tohru when she was downright miserable.

But she kept on smiling.

That’s what she did. She was a fixer. If she fell apart, everyone else did. She had built up foundations for every Sohma member and they had come to rely on her.

She needed a break.

So Kyo would… you know… tell those brats to piss off so Tohru could _breathe._

They were due to leave tomorrow and Kyo had found himself on the roof. Not by choice; instinct drove him to higher perspective. And it was dumb, but he could look at his problems from a fresh perspective up here. And realise how petty and insignificant his worries were, as buildings turned into the size of people, and people turned into the size of ants.

The sky was a vibrant cloudburst of orange and pink. Heavy-set rainclouds loomed dangerously, but the sun had made a brief appearance to light up the summer evening.

_See Tohru, even if you smiled for only an hour, that’s more than enough…_

Kyo leant back, cursing when his head encountered the wet rooftop. He always did this when he was distracted. Sit on a wet spot on the rooftop and become pissed off when the whole point of being up here was trying to be less pissed off.

He didn’t know how Tohru could be so happy all the time. Or how the damn rat could be so asshole-ish all the time. Kyo breathed, the pissed off vibes ebbing slightly. His emotions fluctuated so quickly, and he thought bitterly of the rat’s constant smirk, of Tohru’s endless smile. Hell, even Hanajima’s enigmatic trance.

They had a choice about how they presented themselves, like a filter. They could get their brains to damn shut up.

Kyo sighed. Despite the training in the mountains, which included meditating for hours on end, self-control was still a work in progress.

But progress! He wouldn’t give up! He’d beat the damn rat and take his rightful place as a member of the zodiac! After all… that’s what he had always wanted…

He sat there in silence, lost in thought. He didn’t even notice the soft _pitter patter_ of rain falling onto his face. It seemed that Kyo could forget about being pissed off too, if he remembered about it.

* * *

Yuki had finished his homework and was scrolling through his phone. He didn’t dwell on the unnecessities of social media. He hardly had any pictures. He didn’t think about technology that much, coming from a traditional Japanese family like the Sohmas. They would spend time bonding. “Family time”, or the family’s very warped sense of the term.

They had eaten dinner. Shigure had started work, the stupid cat had retreated to the roof and Miss Honda was in the bath. And Yuki had no inclination of stepping out of his bedroom. Feeling trapped and confined was a fear of his, but he was learning to have his door closed and not let those dark thoughts slip out from his tightly sealed box. Not yet…

Not yet.

Yuki’s head slumped, phone falling out of his grip. He read the time on his clock: 23:23. Getting late into the evening but not late enough for him to feel sleepy. It was compensatory: feeling dead in the morning but alive at night.

The mess of books, folders and clothes were littered around his bedroom but he didn’t spare a thought to cleaning it up.

He would spend this time tackling his projects, organising plans for the secret base and dreading signing up for the student council. Here he was, the president, with a disjointed team and next to no motivation to lead them. It seemed hopeless, leading that team for the whole school year. It was too late to pull out and he intended to see it through, but it was going to be a headache.

And before he could process what he was doing, Yuki’s fingers had searched across the bed and clutched around his phone. He opened up his contacts and saw the contact: Brother.

Yuki twirled the phone around and around. Aimlessly getting nowhere. His brother’s face annoyed him but he had somehow, despite his flamboyance, led as the president. Sensible Hatori had followed Ayame. Yuki still did not understand how.

But he wanted to.

He had spent so much of his live building a wall of indifference around him. He had cared for friends and people once. But that dream had quickly been snuffed out, a weak ember of hope lost to the bitter, unending night.

Yuki remembered darkness and being alone.

(Don’t want to remember.)

As much as he convinced himself to worry about himself alone, he couldn’t. He worried about those he cared about, not that he would let it show.

He wished for Kisa’s heart to never despair and fall silent again; he wondered if he should play those weird video games Haru was obsessed with; should he be contacting the old president and asking him to rethink members of the student council; was Miss Honda eager for the trip tomorrow?

He chuckled softly to himself, reminding that one thought at a time was the only logical way for them to be understood.

The living contradiction of emotional logic.

He was going on vacation tomorrow. And he didn’t want to bring the work away with him. This was a break from the perpetual weight and reputation resting on his shoulders. If he didn’t want to behave like a prince and _smile,_ he didn’t have to.

He wanted to show more and more of his true self every day. Removing that mask took time. Patience. Dedication.

So he would leave the student council behind tomorrow. And when he returned, he would pick the task back up where he had left it. In that way, Yuki was meticulous despite how tedious the work was.

And then he clicked on his brother’s contact.

The phone was dialling.

Yuki swore under his breath, frantically pressing every button except the necessary red one. He would always fling his phone across the room and forget about it for two weeks. That had happened before.

His brother’s face popped up on his phone screen.

“My dearest Yuki?!”

“Hi, Brother,” Yuki mumbled under his breath. Ayame Sohma had a sleeping cap on and luxuriously fitting pyjamas, with little snakes embroidered onto them.

“Would you like me to make you some? Cute little rats for my Yuki, and cats for little Kyo,” Ayame wittered. Yuki’s face dropped in disgust, fingers moving towards the red button. His fingers were millimetres away from pressing it.

“The last thing I want is to have a matching pair of pyjamas as you and the stupid cat,” Yuki sighed, leaning back against the wall, legs splayed long in front of him over forgotten textbooks and notes.

“I will leave you to consider my generous offer, which stands open from your generous sibling. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company? Girl troubles? Spill your words to you devoted older brother! Is Shigure there? He has got to see this!”

“Brother…” Yuki hissed, hastily grabbing a pair of earphones.

“Oh, the writer’s muse has claimed our favourite poet!” Ayame declared, nodding thoughtfully, “that man has reached a new level in his career. His word choice, his plot lines, they are so moving they would make one weep…”

“Hatori finds them revolting,” Yuki commented and watched his brother’s face drop in shock.

“Oh Haa-san is simply teasing with Shigure,” Ayame looked convinced but Yuki was not. Clearly Ayame had just needed to reassure himself. “Have you had a read of your guardian’s latest novel?”

“Of course not!” Yuki said a little louder than he liked. He visibly winced and pulled out an earphone to listen for any unusual sounds, but luckily his outburst had gone unnoticed.

“It should be incorporated into your school curriculum. I would have raised it when I was president…”

“Actually, Brother, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Yuki admitted, hesitantly drawing a finger through his hair.

“Oh, what’s this? You never ask me for advice,” the zodiac snake replied, cocking his head in intrigue and surprise.

“I’m just… lost,” Yuki continued, averting his gaze, his eyes not seeing the floor but walking through a memory, “the former president has hopes for me. My student council members so far are chaotic though.”

That was a nice way to put it. Decimated office. Slacking Vice President that reminded Yuki so much of the man he was on the phone to.

Someone who pissed him off and he wanted to avoid. But also miraculously able to evoke a genuine reaction of shock and anger that was hard to muster from Yuki.

Those masks were so intrinsically woven and fake.

“Ahhh the dissonance of communication within the youth,” Ayame exaggerated, “I remember when I had to fight to dress the way I wanted. And with our unusual quirks, it was not the easiest,” Ayame gestured to his hair with a radiant flick before continuing, “and that’s why ‘Gure wasn’t on the student council. He was popular enough. But those jealous competitors were jealous of our exotic features…”

“Brother, you’re not making sense,” Yuki attempted to steer his brother away from waffle.

“Haa-san and I were certain candidates. But having two out of three of the Machibachi trio was enough for the jealous students who wanted to be on the student council themselves. They spread rumours about Shigure- that he was a delinquent and had dyed his hair that suspiciously fake colour. The teachers were fed by those rumours and he was banned from being in the elections,” Ayame recalled simply as if the matter was no more important than what he was going to eat for breakfast.

Yuki found both Ayame and Shigure infuriating. But Shigure was the one who had taken him in when Yuki had begged to get away from Akito, and here his brother was now, on the other end of the phone, trying his best to disguise a yawn. They cared about him and Yuki begrudgingly thought he could spare one brain cell to think about them as well.

“I hate it,” Yuki said unexpectedly, “I hate how they know nothing.”

“It is a burden we carry, little brother,” Ayame had started stroking the snakes on his sleeves fondly.

“There’s so much for me to do. I don’t know where to start.”

“Keep fighting and try your best! I never lost sight of who I was, and you must do the same, little brother,” Ayame puffed out his chest proudly, “I’ve raised you so well. You will be an excellent president.”

“I’m surprised you still won the elections,” Yuki said, stifling a yawn himself. It was past midnight and even he, the perpetual night owl, was getting tired.

“Be as charming and insightful as I am, Yuki,” Ayame replied.

“Nobody saw you that way except Shigure,” Yuki retorted bluntly, snappy as the sleepiness settled behind his eyes.

“Oh of course those people existed. There were people that didn’t like me! Absurd. They had to like me, I was their student council president!” Ayamme started chuckling and Yuki had to refrain from rolling his eyes.

“And I will be joining you in due course! That is if I can meet my deadlines in time,” Ayame shuddered, “because I will be spending so much time telling Hatori about this phone call tomorrow!”

Yuki hung up.

He sighed and decided throwing his phone across the room was the best solution but not the sensible option. He rolled onto his back, pulling his arm across his face and a stubborn smile appeared on his lips, soft snoring sounding only moments later.

* * *

“Come into the water, Kyo! It’s really relaxing, that is, if you’d like to!”

Kyo would rather not.

He was sitting on the beach a good distance apart from the damn rat and ox who had decided they didn’t want to go into the sea. They had no reason to hate the freezing body of water like Kyo did. Damn bastards. Taking what they had for granted.

Kyo placed his jacket over his head, planning on having an afternoon snooze. He had considered going back to the villa or even better, climbing a tree in the woods, falling asleep to the familiar hum of cicadas and forest birds. But on the shitty shore, he heard laughter and it didn’t piss him off.

He was content where he was despite that damn rat’s shitty vibes permeating across the space Kyo had ensured remained between them.

He closed his eyes but was rudely interrupted to a _wet hand_ dragging his away from his side.

“Come on Kyo, don’t be such a party pooper!” the damn rabbit was whinging and held an iron grip on Kyo’s hand.

“Piss off, you damn rabbit! Find someone else to harass!” and Kyo pulled his hand towards his chest and Momiji’s hand fell sadly to his side.

“Tohru was worried about you all,” Momiji murmured, “Yuki is with Haru but you’re sitting here on your own. Oh look, she’s coming out now-”

“For goodness sake,” Kyo hissed under his breath and stood up. If he was going to do this, he had better get this out of the way. He stormed towards the ocean, quietly lapping and retreating. But he saw no Tohru. She was bobbing up and down in the water with Kisa, taking part in weird water acrobatics. Hiro was sulking in the sea a few metres away (surprise surprise). But Tohru was certainly _not_ coming out of the sea.

“You damn rabbit!”

“Kyo’s coming in!”

To that, Tohru looked up towards them, waving at them both, a ridiculous grin appearing on her face.

“No I’m not, you brat!”

“Kyo hit me…”

“Stop crying, you set this up!”

Momiji stuck out a cheek tongue at Kyo as the zodiac cat trudged unwillingly towards the water.

Kyo could take a load of the babysitting, he guessed as it wasn’t fair for Tohru to be looking after the kids by herself when it was her holiday too…

 _Bullshit,_ his brain supplemented.

 _Fuck off,_ Kyo retorted back.

He shrugged off his shirt and waded out into the sea, feeling those tendrils of seaweed trying to wrap around his feet and drag him under. He froze in place, fighting against the screaming protests in his gut that wanted to run as far away from this place as possible. Anywhere but here. Why had he agreed to come on this dumb vacation when he knew the villa was by the _beach._

Each step he took required him to muster every nerve of willpower he possessed. He winced when the water lapped past his knees, past his waist and then he saw some rocks jutting out of the ocean like teeth. He trudged towards the rocks and hauled himself out, wishing he had just decided to ignore the rabbit and taken his nap.

“Kyo?”

Kyo felt a switch flick in his brain. No longer did his shorts weigh down; no longer did the freezing touch of the water make his teeth clatter. He suddenly felt the sun and how its gentle rays warmed the ocean. And how the water lapped gracefully against the rocks and would not force him out of his comfort zone. He also crouched into a low squat, peering over to the source of the voice.

“Kyo! You made it in!”

“Didn’t you see me coming in?” Kyo replied, wondering how clueless Tohru could be.

“Oh… no… sorry! I was busy watching Kisa, oh I’m sorry! I know coming into the water is a big deal for you, Kyo. I hope you don’t feel I forced you…”

“It’s _fine,_ ” Kyo said sharply. Sharper than he intended to.

“I’m sorry! Please, take this floatie and use it to get back to the shore. I’m so sorry…” Tohru held out the floatie but ended up flinging it at him. The floatie ring soared into the air, landing directly around Kyo’s neck.

“Score!” the damn rabbit squealed in the background.

“I didn’t mean to…”

Kyo couldn’t help himself. Seeing her sweet, clueless face, he started chuckling. He pulled the floatie off from around his neck, hating anything that would constrict his breathing. He had overcome enough protests from the cat spirit by being in the sea willingly, his brain wouldn’t be able to cope with a collar-like object around his neck. He threw it back at Tohru who caught it, surprised.

“You’re better than you were at the hot springs,” he muttered. Tohru turned bright red, remembering her appalling skills at ping-pong. When caught off guard, she had amazing aim. She really was hopeless.

“I’ll continue to improve and try my best,” Tohru spoke under her breath, holding the floatie close.

Kyo sat on the rock, watching as

“And guess what, Kyo, you’re in the sea!”

He looked perplexed.

“You’re not in the water, but you’re out at sea, that counts… right?” she asked, suddenly doubting her line of thought.

“Probably,” Kyo shrugged his shoulders and watched as the younger Sohmas and Tohru had fun in the water. Haru joined them a little later. Ha, the damn rat had probably come down with his dialy dose of the flu. The rock was slowly vanishing under the approaching high tide. Kyo was losing surface area of rock not swallowed by the tide.

He eventually knew he would have to hold his breath and plunge into the water, but he ended up toppling in headfirst, emerging soaked.

“How elegant,” Haru muttered.

Kyo felt his teeth gnash together but swallowed the retort and paddled over to where Tohru was sitting in the floatie. Like on the first full day of their holiday, he grabbed the floatie and started dragging it along towards the shore, “come on, it’s getting late.”

“Ok!” she replied happily.

Kyo continued closer to the shore, not looking back. Nobody saw the secret smile planted on his face.

Through luck of the draw, and to Tohru’s protests, Kyo was assigned clean-up duty. They had brought food, drink and activities for a day to spend at the beach. Tohru was exempt as she wanted to prepare dinner for tonight.

But Kyo had to clean up with the damn rat _of course._

“I’ll help you, Kyo,” Haru stared at an uneaten sandwich wrapped up carefully, realising only then that that was meant to be his lunch.

The rat shook his head, “no, don’t worry, Haru. I’ll be alright.”

“If you’re sure,” Haru shrugged his shoulders and placed his hands into his pockets.

“You damn rat,” Kyo hissed.

“We’ll do this efficiently if you clean up that part,” Yuki gestured towards the other end of the beach, “don’t worry Miss Honda, we’ll be back in a short while.”

Tohru looked hesitant to leave the two of them together but Momiji was tugging her back towards the villa. She followed him.

“Charming little rat,” Kyo snickered. Yuki sighed and seemed to be weighing between two options: respond or ignore. To Kyo’s surprise, he opted for the former.

“You could learn respect too,” Yuki stowed some of the leftover food into a basket.

“Not like you have any,” Kyo stamped on a floatie, deflating the air. Even though they were as far apart as they could be to clean up, Kyo still felt claustrophobic. He would feel claustrophobic anywhere within a 10-mile radius of rat boy. “Ya think that face of yours is enough.”

“I don’t have time for your antics, you stupid cat,” Yuki huffed.

“Don’t get too out of breath. I won’t be carrying you back,” Kyo said as Yuki held back a cough. Kyo’s tone was majority: I-do-not-care but also you-having-an-asthma-attack-would-be-a-pain-in-the-ass.

“Let’s just get this done then,” Yuki sighed and focused his attention on filling the bin bag with their litter. Kyo was folding up the last of the floaties and scanning the darkening horizon for any rubbish they had missed. There wasn’t any. Good. The sooner they could get back, the further away he would get from the rat.

Kyo felt a weariness about him. He could sense the water levels rising, high tide coming in. There were no signs of a storm, but the cat spirit wouldn’t want to go anywhere near the water tomorrow. Today had been enough and that had been when the waves were restful.

The water from today still felt attached to him. His hair and body were dry by this point but the sea still had clutches around his body. Fatigued and done with the day.

He would have dinner and call it a night. He had been up earlier than the rest of them anyway.

He shook his head. Why did he have to justify himself? He did what he did because he could.

“Don’t cause any trouble tomorrow, stupid cat,” Yuki held the basket in one hand and bin bag in the other, standing up to his full height.

“What do ya mean?” Kyo asked warily.

“Didn’t you know? Akito is coming here tomorrow,” Yuki said simply. The damn rat wasn’t showing a damn trace of emotion.

“Why the hell would I care? Akito can do whatever the fuck he wants,” Kyo retorted, trying to keep his cool. His palms were instantly clammy and curled into tight fists.

“And you know what that means,” Yuki warned, “we are going to have to stay by his side. If we are summoned, _we_ have _no choice_.”

“No choice,” Kyo repeated, “no choice! You would if you weren’t such a lazy, simpering rat!”

“Don’t say that,” Yuki snapped, glaring at Kyo, this time he looked wild, threatening. Kyo stood his ground. Kyo was feeling antsy enough. He didn’t to retort but he felt _compelled to._ He wouldn’t be intimidated by a _meek, pathetic rat._

“You got out of the main house! You got to live with Shigure and go to that damn mixed school all because _you’re the first._ If I’d asked for any of that, they would have beaten me up,” Kyo vented, “you think this is all about you! It’s always about God’s perfect little rat boy-”

“Shut up,” the words dropped heavy in the silence.

Kyo hesitated and faltered when his cousin stepped forward, moving fluidly into a fighting stance, his eyes silver and deadly. Basket and bin bag clattered towards the sand, abandoned.

“What did ya say, you lousy rat?” Kyo was the one who sounded lousy. He couldn’t afford to lose his nerve. He couldn’t-

“Shut up,” Yuki repeated, _his_ fists shaking, “if you understood _anything_ you stupid, stupid cat…”

“I’m sorry it’s so hard for you to be perfect,” Kyo hissed. But it was Yuki that moved silently across the sand and struck him with a punch to the cheek. Kyo wobbled, balance precariously on edge and he lunged out with his left foot, but the rat dodged.

The rat was behind him, aiming a jab for his ribs. Kyo blocked the move a second too late, feeling a stinging run along his side.

“I’ll beat you, just you wait!” Kyo shouted and flew his bodyweight forwards. If Akito was going to come tomorrow, he would bring the pulverised rat’s unconscious form before him. He would claim his rightful place as a member of his family. After all, _that’s all he wanted._ Sooner rather than later. He was fucking fed up of listening to this weak bastard and living under the same roof as him was a living hell. Even on vacation, when they were as close to paradise as they would come to, and he was still stuck with him.

Forever being mocked and judged by the rat, a sneering mass of grey looming over him and thinking him as less than human. Less than the rest of them.

 _We_ did not include Kyo. It never had. And never would.

He lowered himself to the ground and rolled to the side, sending out a sweeping foot that slammed into Yuki’s shins.

Yuki grunted but leaped lithely out of the way. Kyo was breathing heavier than usual, but the rat seemed completely unfazed.

“Why do you understand _nothing,_ ” Yuki cried out, “why did everything happen the way it did?”

“I’m sorry, Prince” Kyo snarled and ran with a punch towards Yuki. The rat easily deflected and grabbed Kyo, slamming him into the ground. Kyo’s spine screamed and he felt the breath knocked out of him.

Yuki’s foot landed on top of his chest. Kyo hissed and scratched and kicked but it was to no avail. He knew deep in his gut that he had been born to be beaten by the rat, to be spat on and scorned for being dirt, a monster.

“You won’t be summoned. You’ve got to stay here with Tohru,” Yuki said, “I hate you. And I know it’ll be hard but _try_ and think about someone other than your poor flea-riddled self.”

“I’m not her fucking mother!” Kyo screamed, instantly regretting what he said. Yuki flinched.

They were both looking at the third person to have joined their company, probably looking for them with her annoying care complex.

He watched Tohru standing with two towels in her arms. She glanced at some spot behind Kyo. She then staggered back the way she came, as if in a daydream. Yuki ran to catch up with her. Kyo laid there in the dirt for a long time. This is where he belonged.

He had fucking made her cry again.

* * *

_“Come into the water, Kyo! It’s really relaxing, that is, if you’d like to!”_

What was the point.

He’d only hurt her. He had to stay away.

Stay away in his room and ruminate and rot.

He had awoken at dawn, as his body clock dictated, but he had reluctantly turned away from the morning light. He had stubbornly closed his eyes and waited for sleep to take hold. He heard sounds of the others waking up and stirring. There was a knock on his door. And then another and another. But nobody came in. Leaving Kyo alone when he was in a sour mood was the way that helped diffuse his temper.

He knew it wouldn’t happen… why would she want anything to do with him now anyway… but he waited to hear her timid knock and gentle voice float like the sea breeze across the space between them.

Kyo remained where he was. He knew that wasn’t a possibility. A shit feeling stabbed in his chest, like a second damn heartbeat, and would not fade. When he heard the front door of the villa close, he heard laughter. The knotting sensation in his gut intensified.

Kyo curled up into a ball and waited for sleep to take him.

It wouldn’t be long…

…

_You can’t stay here._

That voice.

_Hurry!_

Said another voice, this one closer to him, from his consciousness and not from a memory.

_You’ve got to wake up!_

Kyo struggled, hearing this strange voice, a whisper in his dream.

_Come on!_

Kyo tossed and turned in his sleep, a veil of darkness covering his eyes.

Then something constricted around his throat.

The world became a blur. Colours merged together. His fingers and toes curled, frozen, as if someone has chopped them off. No sensation.

It was dark and cold.

But where he lacked sensation at his extremities, his core felt the complete opposite. He tried to breathe but a heaviness filled his lungs, panic twisting in his gut just below. His ribs and diaphragm tried to contract but they only filled up with heaviness. This heaviness was water.

His lungs were becoming desperate, igniting fear. His mind sluggish- the world a spinning mass of currents. The blue sky- a sinister lie of serenity, glowed through the water’s surface above. If only he could make it up there. But his body was attached to the chains of the ocean, being dragged into its depths. His struggles becoming futile, as the numbing cold made each limb in turn become dead.

How could water become this _cold?_

More seconds passed. He continued struggling. Couldn’t take a breath.

His lungs were fire.

He woke with a start. He was dripping with sweat, breaths coming in ragged grasps as he clutched his chest, willing the nausea stabbing in his gut to ebb. His heart was in his throat hammering. Every breath clawed at his throat.

His body was on fire even though he had drowned in his dream.

Kyo’s breath hitched, the panic attack barely ebbing. He found himself stumbling to his feet. He was pulling a T-shirt on, opening up the doors, jumping out of the window… moving… never stop moving…

Neglecting to see the breakfast Tohru had prepared for him, waiting outside his bedroom door.

He heard a voice. And he couldn’t help but think…

Was that what it was like to die?

…

The sun scorched upon Kyo’s back. The sky was blue and fathomless. Kyo kept sprinting through the undergrowth, moving swiftly past the sugar water-lacquered trees, sentinels. Kyo ignored the stag beetle he saw latched to a tree. He had one thought in his mind.

He reached the border between forest and beach but could see nobody. His sandals had fallen off in his sprint. Bleeding, blistering feed dug deep into the sand and its ochre grains lapped up the red.

Kyo placed his hands on his knees, doubling over. He had never felt this unfit. His muscles were enjoying a workout rush, protesting slightly at not being stretched before. But his breathing was erratic. Every breath was inhaling liquid fire. He coughed and wiped his hand over his mouth. He willed his breathing to slow but another fierce cough racked through his body, making his brain rattle in his skull.

He was going to be sick.

His legs started shaking and nearly gave up on him. As the sand was a useless grip, Kyo gripped onto the branches of a tree. Like Sensei had taught him, he breathed. He used the tree with its roots to ground himself.

_Hurry!_

That voice from his nightmare.

 _I don’t have time for this, dammit!_ Kyo clutched his fist and pounded it into the damn tree and struggled over the tides of golden sand. Each step started a chorus of protests from his body:

Drink something!

Eat something!

Take a shower!

You’ll get burnout!

 _I don’t have time for this!_ Kyo asserted and his body’s protests rumbled into the background of his attention, like a brooding storm.

Kyo knew full well what would happen if his body endured any more stress. The physical stress rarely affected him (Shigure had given Kyo his damn cold on the day of the school run so that didn’t count). And he didn’t take the time to consider the mental stress, shrugged it aside. He had not felt this unsettled in a long, long time however. He could feel the clutches of a transformation looming in the horizon, but he chose to ignore it. As long as he had legs to _move,_ Kyo didn’t really give a shit what form he took.

He didn’t give a shit about the curse.

He heard her gentle voice and his eyes scanned the waves, slightly heavier, as though they carried some burden on their turquoise shoulders. Nobody there. No floats, no squeals of laughter, no groans of protest.

But this was the spot where they had been yesterday! The Sohma villa had been empty (or had it?) and he’d seen nobody on his sprint to the beach (or had he?) and there was nobody on the beach (are your eyes playing tricks on you?).

Goddammit.

Nobody was here…

But.

Shit.

Shitshit _shit._

Aktio was here, a storm-like presence waiting to burst. Kyo could sense it. And like the waves, his seas were restless today.

And today the zodiac members would have been summoned to Akito.

The damn rat had warned him.

But nobody had come to find him this morning as he had been in such a foul mood the night before

_And he had hurt her-_

“Tohru!” he cried out, voice lost to the fathomless depths beyond.

He heard nothing. But he saw something blowing towards him, carried on the summer winds, and Kyo was sprinting towards it, mustering the strength he needed. A driving force more powerful than his vengeful spirit’s pathetic protests.

He caught the floatie in his arms. The thing had been punctured from the vicious rocks.

Those rocks he had been standing on yesterday. Teeth, sharp, jagged, deadly.

He squeezed the floatie. If it had been inflated, it would have popped, his nails digging in.

He continued sprinting, his breathing erratic and he was the opposite of grounded because that _did not matter-_

He then saw the sandcastle.

A poorly erected thing, a mound of damp sand made with the careful moulding and patting the numerous fingerprints on the castle suggested.

Only one dumbass he knew would spend so much time making a mound of earth look beautiful.

“TOHRU!” he screamed towards the water, looking for any waving, any signs of life. _Anything._

The only thing he could hear was the pounding of the waves.

The ocean’s roar.

A beast with a belly that could never be sated. That lured in its victims with its lulling demeanour. And when the time was right, the waves became vicious and the sea would _strike._

Kyo had waited long enough. He had no choice. With his body screaming and lungs filling with dread, he stepped towards the clutches of the sea, waiting for it to consume him.

But a thought struck him. He waited and waited and waited. He waited for rain to pass, he waited for his anger to subside and he waited for the damn rat to become weaker than him. He was fed up with retreating when shit went down.

He couldn’t run away from inevitability.

Before he would regret anything fucking else, he plunged headfirst in the current, his world becoming a vortex of blue and green and white and her gentle, gentle smile.

He surfaced, gulping in a lungful of air.

The water jabbed into his legs like knives, quickly rising to engulf everything but his head. Kyo had never been this deep in seawater before.

He paddled furiously through the current, wishing he had been more willing to participate in swimming lessons. But he knew enough about the poses. He launched into a front crawl, willing his muscles to move, the ones he arduously trained.

This is what they were meant to do.

If all of those years of intense training had been for anything, it had to be this.

He couldn’t fail.

The blue sky, paradise’s illusion, loomed down on Kyo, sneering, as the cat took a deep breath, plunging himself deeper underwater.

If the sea’s surface was restless, the sea’s underground was relentless. The current intensified, dragging him in all directions except the one he wanted to go. Keeping buoyancy sapped his strength. Just holding himself in place and not being swept away by the current. He had to force his mouth to remain snapped shut- his lungs crying out for air, his muscles drained.

He scanned frantically underwater. His eyes stung. Saltwater wrapped its binds around him, ready to drag him down. He feet were flailing, now very out of his depths. The safety of ground beneath his feet a forgotten time.

Forced to rise to the surface, he coughed and sucked in more air. He then thought about those damn rocks, the last brain cell fizzling out of existence. He hauled his body towards the rocks. The current was his ally, seemingly guiding him.

That lie was shattered. The outcropping of rocks glinted like diamonds. Or daggers.

The current rippled and instantly dragged him towards the rocks. He batted the waves with powerful forearm strokes.

And then he saw her.

A bleeding and broken body limply sprawled across the rocks.

Kyo fucking swam and he crawled up the rock. He reached down and started resuscitation and CPR and everything he could fucking think of-

He clutched onto his human form for life for he needed it more than ever

He refused to accept the cool touch of her arms when their skin brushed. He refused to accept there was no whisper of breath escaping through her lips. He refused to believe her glassy eyes saw only darkness, all light sapped from their depths.

As dark and vile as the looming sea beyond.

Kyo closed his eyes, remembering a dream of fire and water, and smashed his fist against a rock, fracturing his fingers.

_None of fucking mattered._

Tohru Honda was dead.


	2. Just Today

Dreams of Paradise

.

.

.

Just Today

.

.

.

_~After~_

He never wanted to leave his room again. He hardly had over the past week since arriving home.

Home? It didn’t feel like that anymore.

Not without her here.

Making this prison slightly bearable.

And now he had nothing.

Kyo thought this was harder than confinement in the Cat’s Room, the fate that undoubtedly awaited him after he had graduated from High School.

He was sprawled on the floor. His room was clean enough and the windows were open to let a tranquil summer breeze in. The room was light. But Kyo felt nothing.

How could he? When he’d seen her cold broken body, a part of him broke.

He didn’t care.

Somebody had knocked on his door. Today? Yesterday? Who cares.

When he went to the bathroom, he found a plate of food next to another untouched plate from the night before. He’d take a piece of fruit, eat a bite and force it down his throat.

He was full and empty simultaneously.

A constantly waning moon until nothing was left.

He glanced absent-mindedly at his calendar, his eyes not taking in the details of training goals and assignments. The red pen did nothing to stir motivation in his mind.

Two weeks.

Is that all it had been?

He still had a year before graduation. Another week until school started up again.

Not that he was bothered with going.

And tomorrow… was the _day._

The day Kyo decided he was going to vanish. He was so damn tired. But he couldn’t face the tides again. He couldn’t watch the faces of shock and _grief_ all staring at him with their goddamn apologies and sympathy. Not that they understood.

Understood what it was to be loved and accepted as a monster.

The disappointment was worse.

When he’d promised the damn rat he’d protect her and he hadn’t been able to do that. It didn’t matter what shit Akito threw into the fire if Kyo couldn’t protect Tohru from the goddamn sea.

People didn’t… didn’t go that way anymore.

Old age, loved ones around you, fall asleep and that’s it, off you go.

Life happened though.

Leaving as much misery and sorrow in its wake as it could.

Kyo wondered as he stared up at the repaired ceiling what he should take with him. How he could get as far away from this place as possible.

He didn’t know why he had come back. Why he had stayed.

What was there left here?

He heard someone calling him from downstairs. He brought himself to his knees and pushed himself off the ground with fists. His door slid open and ignoring the voice of the dog or Master or another damn person he didn’t want to interact with, he headed in the opposite direction. Down the hallway towards her room.

This is what happened when he wasn’t thinking. He’d leave his room, walk to the front of her door and wait to hear the quiet snores, continuous humming of an outdated song or a crash as she knocked something over again. Did she know what a juxtaposition she was? Someone who found cleaning relaxing and stayed clean but contributed to the mess herself through sheer clumsiness?

She’d never made sense. She’d never been normal.

Smiling at everything. Being friends with a vibe girl and delinquent. Finding redeemable qualities about the Sohmas, cursed souls born broken.

She had a way of fixing everything.

That irritating smile and _voice_ calling her name, quietly but brimming with excitement, over and over again.

“Kyo!”

Present-Kyo stood at the door. This happened a lot. Mental meanderings.

And it always brought him back to her. Back to standing in front of her bedroom door with all her items in it. They hadn’t touched her stuff.

He grabbed the door handle. He pulled down on the handle and let warm sunlight filter in on him. There was a figure sitting on the floor, holding a tatty baseball cap.

What was the damn rat doing here? He didn’t care.

“Thought you’d be at a dumb student council meeting,” Kyo kicked at the dust. Rat-boy remained bowed over on the floor like in some strange ritual.

Kyo took a breath, sighing. He had hardly spoken to the rat since coming home. In the past they had never spoken. Correction: they hadn’t spoken without fighting. The rat-boy needed to be dragged down from his pedestal.

But they weren’t fighting anymore.

Kyo had heard hallway doors slamming. He had watched the rat storm off into the night when even he would have usually been asleep, followed by an army of rodents to keep him company. He had watched rat-boy being eaten up by the shadows and was one without anything material in this world for him to hold onto.

He heard coughing and Hatori coming over to check on the rat.

But they weren’t fighting anymore.

The rat wasn’t talking.

The moment he had seen Tohru when Kyo had brought her back to shore-

_(He’d wanted to run away of course he had but he was paralyzed. His body wouldn’t move even if he wanted it to.)_

-Kisa had started crying. Momiji was shaking his head in complete denial. Haru had put a hand on the rat’s shoulder. But the rat had just stood there. And didn’t say a word.

Not much was needed to send him over the edge. A twelve-year-old was coping better than him.

The damn rat didn’t care about her. He didn’t have the right to care about her. He was probably holed up in his room carrying about his day like usual, working on homework, working on projects and signing autographs for his fan club. Kyo didn’t give a damn about what he did in his free time.

Kyo gave a damn about how the pathetic rat didn’t give a shit.

And here he was moping in _her_ room holding _her_ rotten hat (a hat he’d let the rat have years ago and god knows why Tohru had had it) but still it was _hers_ and it made his blood boil and mind seethe.

“Get the fuck away from her shit!” Kyo kicked the floor next to the rat. He didn’t get a reaction. “Come on, you unfeeling bastard! Get up. Get the fuck up and fight me!”

He grabbed the scruff of Yuki’s collar and tried to drag his cousin to his feet. Face him fairly. One-on-one here and now.

Yuki was a deadweight. He slumped back to the floor. Kyo cursed. He hadn’t been working out and he couldn’t support the weight of the useless rat.

Kyo snorted with disgust and swiped the hat from Yuki’s hand-

But the rat’s death grip made Kyo lose his footing. He righted himself just in time, stopping himself from falling onto the ground.

That damn rat with his damn strength while doing jack shit. Damn rat who had never done a hard day’s work in his goddamn life.

“Give me that!”

Still no response.

Kyo thought the rat was staring at the hat. But Yuki’s eyes were blank, fixed on something far away that only he could see. Properly dissociating. His shoulders were by his ears and body was hunched over, rigid and unmoveable like some pillar of sadness injected into her fucking bedroom.

Here and now… in her room.

He couldn’t destroy it.

Kyo let go. He didn’t have the time for this moping bastard clutching onto the hat like a child holding onto a blanket.

But she hadn’t let go.

Kyo stepped back awkwardly. He knew that when Tohru had held onto him- his lifeline, his fucking beacon in this crappy world- he had been saved. If she had let go… well Kyo wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t have come back.

If Yuki let go-

Kyo took another step back, creeped out but not going to interfere with the rat.

Kyo closed the door behind him. The hallway yawned in front of him. Kyo didn’t realise how tired he was. How he such little energy to do anything while doing nothing physical. How had he survived training in the mountains for four months? How had he survived a school surrounded by girls and hyperactive people all day every day and had only jumped out of the window twice?

He couldn’t survive sitting in his bedroom doing fucking nothing. No expectations, nobody wanting anything from him. He wanted to be left alone and he was getting _what he wanted-_

He didn’t fucking know how he was meant to feel and the more he tried to think about it the more frustrated he became.

He curled his fist and slammed in into his bedroom door, splintering the door to pieces, dropping around his feet. Fixable. Just replace it.

Everything and everyone in this world was replaceable. He’d convinced himself up until now that life happened. People were born, people died. Carry on. Life happened. End of.

But when someone made life precious, made life worth living for… living life wasn’t enough. Surviving wasn’t enough.

He’d wanted to see the world. If he only had a year of freedom remaining, he wanted to fight and see as much of the world as he could. Make memories, some good, some crappy, with her. She’d made this hellhole matter. He made fighting worth it.

Just to see her smile and to hear her voice.

He’d do anything.

He went back to laying on the ground and staring at the ceiling, apathetic to the minutes and hours that drifted by around him.

* * *

When Shigure called him downstairs for dinner, he found himself trudging down, obliging.

Even if it was sitting with the annoying mutt, Kyo just wanted to hear someone rambling on. He liked background noise. Whether that be within nature, under the rush of a waterfall or serenade of songbirds or listening to the radio, they helped to tune out Kyo’s thoughts. The spiralling thoughts that would send him all the way

d  
o  
w  
n.

Down, down, down into a dark place he couldn’t fall victim to. As like the damn rat showed him, once you were trapped, there was no getting out.

Kyo heaved his ass off the floor and stepped through the piles of ginger hair collecting on the floor. He kicked the remaining parts of his door open, no longer caring about the door’s fate. It was too broken to be fixed at that point.

Heavy, weary muscles complained as he went down the stairs. One at a time. He hadn’t come downstairs in days. He reached the bottom step, looked towards the porch and saw a pair of her shoes resting on the shoe rack. He turned the other way and didn’t look back.

The familiar waft of takeout drifted from the kitchen. He’d grown used to eating crap the past two weeks, which was probably also reason why he felt so weak and shitty.

The light was on in the main room so the lazy ass was flopped out in there, planning his next shitty novel. Kyo sighed and stomped towards the kitchen, grabbing a curry out of the greasy bag, grabbed some chopsticks and carried the food container to where Shigure was.

Kyo paused at the threshold when he heard laughing.

It started as a giggle and became louder.

“I’d thought we’d hit rock bottom!”

That was the dumb dog.

He heard someone mutter softly under their breath. Probably Hatori. Over to check on the damn rat like usual.

Here eating shitty takeout and having a catch up like nothing was the matter.

Kyo despised the rat. Even if Yuki hadn’t reacted, he still felt like shit. But the dog sounded so happy and carefree. Kyo’s spirit trembled with fury. He pushed down the howling pit of anger, telling it to fuck off but he felt so _angry_ and goddamn it was hard to control the flare-ups of rage that sent shockwaves down his limbs. Energy trying to escape.

Trapped in this pathetic body.

He curled his free hand into a fist so tightly his skin started dribbling blood. Kyo didn’t notice. Kyo didn’t care. Some of the pent-up energy had been released. That was what mattered.

He could be goddamn selfish himself too occasionally.

“And you know what the worst part is? He believed this was _planned._ ”

Kyo didn’t hear Hatori’s reply.

“Of course it wasn’t,” Shigure snapped.

Kyo took the opportunity to storm into the main room. He slammed his takeout onto the table.

“Kyo! What a surprise!”

“You haven’t been here since coming back.”

“I know _that_ ,” Kyo growled. His fists were already shaking. He couldn’t look at either one of them, dammit. There they were, looming down over him, feeling better abut themselves because at least they weren’t possessed by the Cat, at least they weren’t monsters. Or were they pitying in? A hopeless case like him that needed saving and had found someone who was willing to stay by his side, willing to stitch his broken pieces together so he could one day fly.

“Tell me, you bastard, how you’re _laughing,_ ” Kyo felt the takeout container beginning to leak out.

“You know Shigure laughs in inappropriate situations,” Hatori started.

“Don’t make up excuses for him!”

“I’m sorry, Kyo. We’ve got to get through tomorrow…”

“Don’t treat her like she’s a fucking chore! Like some piece of work you can’t be bothered with and have to finish off because you have to! Pretend like you care, for once. For her sake!” and Kyo hurled the breaking container at Shigure, exploding in his face and the dog sat there in shock, curry sauce dripping down his cheeks, as Kyo kicked down the door to the outside. Shigure had run with flapping arms into the kitchen, blurting something about his novelist gown being ruined.

Fucking good. The bastard deserved it.

Before he could sprint out, a hand grabbed his wrist.

“Before you go, you must promise me you’ll come back,” Hatori’s purple eye glared into Kyo’s. He flinched but Hatori held on harder.

“Get away from me, you bastard!”

“Promise me.”

“Why are you here? Why do you pretend like you care? Go back to Akito where you fucking belong!”

“Because I care about Honda too, Kyo. Promise me you’ll come back so you can pay tribute to her tomorrow. If you don’t, you’ll face the repercussions.”

“There’s nothing worse you can put me through,” Kyo deflated slightly. It was true.

“Promise me,” Hatori repeated, his voice a little softer but his grip still as firm.

“I’ll return,” Kyo said and finally the damn dragon let go and went to pacify Shigure, as he did the snake and Akito.

Hatori was their rock while _she_ had been their root. One stone-cold and the other a small, weak flower. A flower that continued to bloom despite being trampled on. _Hope._

He couldn’t bear to be in this house for another second.

But as he reached the edge of the trees, he skidded to a halt. He was doing what he would have done in the past. Run away. Hope somebody could fix the mistakes he had made. Like a child.

He didn’t want anyone else getting hurt because of him. He could protect people by keeping away. But he wasn’t going to run away. He wouldn’t let the curse win out. Not this time. With what little he could control, he would.

Kyo didn’t want to go back to the house. He made a compromise and climbed a tree so he could see the city lights twinkling in the distance as well as the house close by. The wilderness called, enticing him with leafy hands.

He rested with his head against the trunk and legs on a branch. Too tired to do anything else, Kyo felt himself slip into a slumber.

…

It would have been easier if he hadn’t woken up that morning.

The day started off so damn warm and bright- _happy_ that people on this fucking earth were dying left, right and centre.

There was already a car waiting at the bottom of the slope. An ominous black car.

He was wearing the same clothes from yesterday. He had basic human needs to take care of.

He’d do it today.

Before he could change his mind, he climbed down the tree and made his way around the back of the house to avoid the annoying bastards he happened to live with. They were family. By blood. By a fucking curse. But apart from that, he hated the dog and rat.

Kyo climbed the usual route to his bedroom, glad the windows were open. He gazed longingly at the roof.

_Shower first dammit._

He poked a foot through the window and shuffled his body through the gap. A suit was hanging up on his closet. Stuffy and tight and complete with a tie. Like the rat’s attire. Constricting and claustrophobic.

For her.

There was a note on the bed. He snatched it up and glanced at its contents. The… plan for the day.

With a quick time check, he realised he had an hour before the car was set to leave (so why was it here so early?). There was a tight knot in his gut. But he had promised that just for today, he’d try to drink and eat more than half his daily intake. He grabbed the suit and stalked towards the shower. Finding it unoccupied (the house was still eerily quiet. It had been quiet without her here, but considering what was happening today, he’d expected some noise), he slipped off his worn clothes and hopped into a cold shower. He took a deep breath and huffed out. Goosebumps prickled along his skin like hackles rising. He felt his shoulders relaxing under the water pressure, easing out the knots and tension from sleeping upright.

His shoulders ached. His whole body would feel weary. But for the tension to ease his aching for ten minutes was better than nothing.

After towelling himself off, he changed into his suit. But he kept the top button undone. He thought about getting the tie ‘accidently’ wet. He decided it would be better to lose it in his wardrobe, to throw it in there and forget about.

He’d never worn a tie. Shigure, his guardian technically, never gave a shit about attire. The lazy ass only combed his hair when he was going to the school, for a work meeting and rarely to the main house.

At least Kyo combed his hair every day.

He splashed water into his tired eyes (he looked like _crap_ ) and slapped his cheeks. All he had to do was get through today.

He could break apart after.

He stomped towards the kitchen despite feeling nauseous. He grabbed a carton of milk, poured cereal into a bowl and stuffed his face while standing up in the middle of the kitchen. His stomach churned. Kyo kept shovelling food down his throat. He gagged. Once, then twice. But he kept swallowing. If he kept swallowing, _something_ had to stay down. His body couldn’t function on empty forever. The sooner his damn brain realised that, the sooner he could get his appetite back.

 _Just today,_ he reminded himself, repeating it as a mantra in his head.

He kept his gaze solely focused on the ground. He couldn’t look around. He’d see too many things that reminded him of her. This dumpster had become the heart of the house. Always welcoming, with a warm smile and food heating up on the stove. The smell of fresh laundry. Mixing and experimenting with new flavours.

Kyo even loved the leeks.

The goddamn leeks.

And he heard the fridge door slam shut.

Kyo went to the sink to wash up his bowl but paused as the rat stumbled towards the sink, glass in hand. His cousin wasn’t a morning person; he was slow to come around but he wasn’t _dysfunctional._

This Yuki didn’t look like he could put one foot in front of the other without collapsing.

“Hey!”

He didn’t expect to get an answer, but he’d hoped for a reaction. The rat didn’t even attempt to eat any food. He had a sip of water and left the dirty glass in the sink.

“Yuki! Kyo! I’m glad I found you, are you both ready to go?” Shigure announced as he boldly entered. He glanced at Kyo, nodding slightly before turning to the rat, “Yuki, the car’s leaving in ten. You’re not changed yet. You can’t look that way for our dear Tohru.”

“Shut up,” Kyo’s anger fired up through his veins again, “don’t you dare talk about her like that.”

The rat continued to stare at his feet, swaying in space.

“I only want us to pay a fitting tribute for Tohru,” the dog whined.

“Just stop with the fucking bullshit, Shigure! Stop being so fucking happy. Sorry your plan didn’t work out for you, I don’t care! Pretend like you care,” Kyo threw the bowl against the wall, hearing it smash. He didn’t bother to look or pick up the pieces.

“Do as you will, Kyo,” Shigure said to Kyo darkly but the redhead grabbed his essentials, stuffed them into a pocket and ran out into baking sunshine, leaving Shigure to try and communicate something to a hollow puppet.

He kicked a stone and back at the house and at the blindingly warm sun and tensed his body.

_Just today._

Today was for her. Fuck his feelings. Fuck everyone else.

He didn’t want to think.

He _couldn’t._

He shoved the ache in his heart to the back of his mind. More shit for him to deal with. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let the shadows win, not yet.

Fuck Shigure. Fuck the world.

They all got into the car without uttering a word… there was a ceremony…. Everyone was crying, even the sheep and Hatori… everyone was there… there was a shrine…. Incense, black veils, her photo… words… people coming up to talk to him… he nodded numbly… get through it.

_Just today._

The rat stood by the Honda family shrine the whole afternoon. He didn’t move. He didn’t react. Just stood there. Kyo couldn’t for too long. Secrets buried. Too hard to think.

He sighed and watched as the sun set, twilight prickling to the forefront of the sky. He stood with arms folded at the top of the cemetery, watching over the land like a sinister overload. Eventually the damn rat left.

The Sohmas wouldn’t expect Kyo to come home tonight. He had all the time he needed. Just a few hours left…

And then he didn’t know what was coming next.

He went to stand in front of the grave, waiting to feel something. He didn’t. He didn’t feel angry. Just damn tired. As always. At least anger was _feeling_ something.

He wasn’t an emotional person. He left that to the rabbit

But he was used to feelings of frustration, anger and guilt and fire and red, everything he couldn’t manifest into words. Those were seeping out of him, leeching and robbing him of colour and light.

Until a steady loneliness remained.

He heard something behind him. Turning round on the spot, the last person he expected to see made his entrance.

“What are you doing here, you brat?”

“I came to pay my respects like you have,” Hanajima’s younger brother stepped out of the shadows, his black attire allowing him to blend in. He was wearing his distinct clothing but was accessorised with extra pendants and protective charms around his neck and wrists.

“It’s late and you’re just a kid,” Kyo countered. He was fucking tired and didn’t have time for this kid. But he stayed where he was, damn curiosity winning out.

Megumi Hanajima laughed, “I take it you did not see my family here earlier. We wanted to come but my sister and I have never done well in crowds.

“I like the night. It gives me chance to think.”

“Think about what? You’re just a kid.”

Kyo tried not to make an uncomfortable space. Megumi looked like he was either trying to be a ghost or eighty-year-old man. No, he was just a kid that had a weird role model. Of course he would act similarly to Hanajima.

“There’s a place that my family visit once a year.”

And Megumi pointed up to the top of the tallest mountain. Somewhere impossible to reach. Typical.

“There’s a well you can go to that makes your wishes come true,” Megumi said. He looked at the Honda shrine.

Kyo followed his gaze and saw that some incense had been lit. Kyo hurriedly looked from side to side, wondering how the hell that had happened without him hearing. But when he turned around, the younger Hanajima had vanished into the night as well.

_“We’ll see each other again when you return from before.”_

* * *

_There’s a well you can go to that makes your wishes come true._

_He was floating in a sea, bobbing up and down on the waves. The sky was white and the sea was gold, twisting and turning, the waves like glowing lights._

_He didn’t feel cold or warm._

_It was pleasant. The first night without having a nightmare, or hearing that voice…_

_And as if on cue, the voice spoke, desperate and panicking._

_“Hurry, you’ve got to get up!”_

_But Kyo had nowhere else to be. The day was over. He could stop now. He’d done it._

_“You both can’t stay here. You’ve got to go.”_

_The water was beginning to warm up. It started bubbling. The golden ocean began to crackle, hot smoke swirling from its surface. The air stank of sulfur and the sky turned a mute grey._

_Kyo flailed at last, realising he was swimming numbly in an ocean of fire. And as if it could pass through his body, his lungs were on fire. Consuming his soul and burning him alive. He tried to scream but as the fire continued to pour through every cell, a cold deadweight settled in his lungs and throat._

_He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. He was alone. Nobody could help._

_And like that, every dream he had turned into a drowning nightmare. One she had endured._

_Kyo couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have her dead. He couldn’t accept that reality. He’d seen how everyone was breaking apart._

_Even if it was hopeless, there had to be a way…_

_“You’ve got to wake up!”_

Kyo’s eyes opened, moisture on his face. He sat up and stared at one of the only two pictures he allowed himself. One with Shishou. And his class portrait. His friends mucking about, Hanajima mysteriously absent, Uotani swearing at the camera, and him, the rat and Tohru standing near the middle. She had her arms linked with theirs, the biggest smile on her face, a springtime treasure.

He was moving and packing before his brain could catch up. His heart was beating so quickly and a hand involuntarily returned to his throat, confirming the burning sensation was in his mind. If he was doing this, he couldn’t leave the rat behind. Tohru wouldn’t forgive him. He wouldn’t forgive himself.

Kyo kicked open Yuki’s bedroom door. Kyo frowned, the stink of _neglect_ hanging heavy in the air. Complete opposite to his room. Bed unmade, clothes thrown on the floor, books scattered on pages and left to collect dust, windows closed, curtains shut.

Block everything out.

It was dark, the only light illuminating from the digital clock shimmering on the bedside table, flashing dangerously red. Uneaten plates piled up in one corner of the room; unwashed laundry was stacked precariously in another corner. Kyo took another step and heard something crunch beneath his feet. He lifted a leg and saw a smashed phone.

But Kyo could see the dents in the side of the device. As if it had been hurled across the room many times before. And not just onto the floor.

He side-stepped past the broken phone. There was no obvious sign of anyone inhabiting the room currently as Kyo glanced through the darkness. Rats were sneaky bastards and Kyo knew the tricks.

Kyo saw a pile of clothes at the top corner of the rat’s bed. He put two and two together (even if he wasn’t the studious type didn’t mean he didn’t know his stuff. He had a couple of brain cells).

Kyo grimaced as he lifted a sleeve out of the way, revealing a grey rat breathing laboriously, body shivering and eyes closed.

Pathetic little creature.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Kyo sighed as he grabbed some random items of the rat’s clothing and stuffed them into his backpack. He didn’t know how long they were going to be. Clothes, basic toiletries, cash and food rations would do.

“I’m not letting you go away too, dammit,” Kyo hissed. The rat opened one eye weakly before it flitted shut again. Kyo picked rat-boy up by the scruff of his neck and stuffed him into his pocket. Give him a good shake up.

“We’re gonna save her. Trust me on this. Working with you is the last thing I wanna do. I hate this but I’m sucking it up… So suck it up.” Kyo muttered as he opened the window. The ledge was easy to leap out of. Being possessed gave him a damn righting reflex so he might as well use it.

Kyo landed lithely on his feet. He’d been waiting to hear a squeak of protest from the rat but heard nothing. Shame. At least the rodent wasn’t coughing anymore.

Yuki really was sick.

As if a time pressure wasn’t lingering on Kyo’s shoulders already.

The woods came up to greet him like an old friend. Kyo didn’t pause to take in his surroundings. He planned his trajectory and route with each tree he passed. He counted fifty branching sentinels before a rugged mountain path revealed itself, spiralling up, up up.

Kyo took a second to pause and hoist the back properly on his shoulder and continued to sprint.

‘Hope’ was a bold word. He wasn’t ready for that yet. But determination was a damn improvement from wallowing.


	3. The Well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May have written this in one sitting lol. Muse why are you like this.

Dreams of Paradise

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The Well

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_~After~_

The words swam through his mind.

_There’s a well you can go to which makes wishes come true._

Round and round the words swam like koi circling a pond. Nowhere else to go.

Nowhere else to go except up.

The looming mountains before him, pillars of earth erected as monuments of time, were a comfort. They were a place of solace, of retreat and safety. If he was ever in doubt, his gaze would go to the stars, to the trees, to the mountains. They were there yesterday and they would be there tomorrow. Even if things were shitty, he could survive.

As the mountains survived a storm.

Kyo trudged one foot in front of the other, calves burning dully in the background of his thoughts. The majority of his attention was focused on the biting wind. The wind was perpetually warm in high summer, although its currents were like a whip, beating the breath out of his chest and tying taut around his chest, making each breath laborious and strained.

The consequences of neglect were laughing at him from the shadows.

Sweat dripped down his face, evaporated away and was quickly replaced by another slick layer of moisture on his forehead.

He held onto the words as a promise- a promise there was something he would do. Something to stop the dull aching in his chest. The uselessness. The day was up.

And he had nowhere else to go except up.

With the city lost in the horizon, otherwise unrelenting smog unleashed its grip on the sky, so a net of stars granted visibility. He wasn’t sure what that meant for a normal human. But his zodiac spirit was notorious for being nocturnal and devious. Kyo couldn’t see as much as he could sense a jutted crevice in the mountain path, hear the swish of a bramble he could leap over. Shadows and shapes were given greater dimension.

Kyo wasn’t grateful for his heightened senses. It put him on edge, set his gaze and intention of the quietest whisper, the softest intent.

In nature he found stillness.

Nature had its own ambitions however. Nature’s intent was to keep Kyo away from the well.

So the winds kept biting. The winds kept slicing.

Kyo leaned forward even more like a hunchback and he prodded a finger to the edge of his pocket where he felt the tip of a rat tail.

Good. The damn rat wasn’t helping but at least he wasn’t a hindrance.

The rat hadn’t moved though. Kyo had been waiting for some sense of a struggle or even the sounds of a cough to emanate from his pocket. Some indication the rat was fighting. The rat was alive.

He pictured faint breathing and grey. Not the bright red of blood, of fire and passion. But the dull grey pallor of death- of oblivion.

The deep dark void Kyo was afraid he’d fall into.

As Yuki had fallen. Kyo felt a shudder through his body. Despite how much he hated the rat, he didn’t wish that fate on anyone. Kyo mustered the will to take each draining step forwards, _up up up,_ showing there was something _there_. Whether that spark was life, determination or sheer stubbornness, it persisted within Kyo.

Because he was a coward. At least the damn rat had accepted reality.

That Tohru Honda was dead.

Every second Kyo waited, waited for her to appear carrying stowaway laundry. He expected to hear her voice. Her voice, a promise, that everything would be ok. A world without her was a world he didn’t want to live in.

But here he was, living and fighting. So through his twisted reasoning, that meant she had to be alive. Time had stopped for Kyo. He had stopped thinking, stopped feeling. Because his life was on pause until she came back. Until she returned to the dark room, turned on the lights and opened the windows, sending the breath of summer back through Kyo’s soul.

She wasn’t dead.

But wasn’t a funeral supposed to be closure.

The rat had shut himself down from the rest of reality. Because Tohru had kept him from crumbling too. He accepted that. She had moved on, the lights had gone out, the world had fallen apart. Yuki’s willpower had slipped away too.

The rabbit had cried throughout the funeral. He had been snivelling and even Haru had been close to snapping at him.

The day that Tohru had been found, Haru had turned away from the others. He had returned the next day with cuts and scars along his body and a blackened eye. There were even bite marks on his shoulders. He had refused to say a word.

And then some of the zodiac members were carrying on like normal, including the adults and Kisa and Hiro. That was a surprise to Kyo. Maybe she held onto the same stubborn foolishness that Kyo did. The foolishness of a child being told no.

Kyo swore as he stumbled on a branch. His reflexes were still attuned and aware. His body, fatigued, was slowly surrendering to the unspoken promise of sleep. Thoughtlessness. Oblivion. Sweet nothingness.

He took a moment to lean against a tree, flex his sore ankle. He could move it without sheer amounts of pain. It wasn’t broken. He returned to his hike, noticing with spite how he was leaning on one leg, his injured leg taking less weight.

Whereas before his movements could be mindless, now his mind wandered and electricity in his ankle snapped him back to his senses. He huffed and drew his breath as the familiar dusty path ended, replaced with a ravine with a fallen mildew-infested log. The path appeared again on the other side of the ravine, but vanished in a world of darkness, something even Kyo’s eyes couldn’t penetrate.

The log was rooted in place this side with roots but the other side was rotting away. He could skirt around the ravine. But his instinct urged him to trust his body. To trust that as a cat he would never fall.

If he was a cat, he wouldn’t fall. Three functioning limbs were better than one-

No, he fucking wouldn’t stoop that low, not until all options had ran out. He didn’t need another element of the unknown thrown into the equation.

Could he traverse the log? With ease.

In his condition? With the winds trying to push him downstream like a neighbour chasing a child out of their garden? With difficulty.

He was hesitating again, dammit!

No more waiting around. No more moping. Not until he was dragged under by the current of his thoughts. Not until he had nothing left to do. Not until he _accepted_ and that wouldn’t be until he reached the peak of this mountain.

Kyo tentatively lifted his good leg onto the log, his arms outstretched for balance. He teetered for a second but found his footing, slowly moving his injured leg beside the good one. Feeling the ground rooted beneath his feet, he took a tiny step forward. He focused his gaze on the path leading into the unknown. He wouldn’t look down. He wouldn’t look back. He held his arms straight out at his sides, imagining they were like a tail, his rudder, his balance. His wings. As long as he could fly, he wouldn’t fall.

He shuffled along, shifting weight into his good leg at every opportunity. Even with his gaze fixed on nothing but what was ahead, he knew he had left the safety of the log connected to firm land behind. He was overlooking a precipice. The ravine yawned below, rocks glinting like teeth, the darkness a gaping maw waiting for careless victims to slip.

The wind was a melody, humming in tone to the sound of his breathing- rhythmic, stilled, controlled- and would then pick up to a frenzy and Kyo would have to grit his teeth to stop himself from rocking side to side.

As usual, the rat offered no helpful words of advice.

Up ahead, there was a flash of white. Kyo blinked furiously as a wisp of silver smoke hovered in the air in front of the path. The light ascended towards the mountain path. Kyo reached out but felt his centre of gravity shift. His good leg rose on instinct and his weight shifted to his bad foot. His knee tried to crumple of instinct and Kyo swore as the ripples of pain became harder-hitting.

He lowered his hands to the log before he lost his balance. The trunk’s surface was slippery and had the damp scent of mildew. Palms flat, he dug his nails into the bark and brought weight off his bad leg, returning his good leg to the ground with control. It fucking hurt but he had to move slowly.

Pushing his arms into the ground, he used the force as propulsion to bring him back to upright.

And a gust of wind appeared out of nowhere, like the monstrous breath of the unknown beast lurking in the ravine below. The gust jabbed into Kyo’s side. He swayed from side to side. And his foot then slipped-

He jumped. He had no choice. It was that or fall.

Hands scrabbled at the ravine’s edge. His body dangled below and Kyo hoisted himself up with a sharp breath in.

He crawled away from the precipice, hands digging into the ground beneath him. That log was behind him. The ravine was history.

“Couldn’t have gotten your little rat friends to build a bridge for us,” Kyo commented. He shrugged when he heard no answer and turned to face the path ahead.

With a swat of some brambles, the mountain path revealed itself. A veil of silver smoke lightly rose from the curving path. And with a shrill cry, the ethereal silver figure appeared in front on Kyo. It looked like a will-o’-wisp with limbs and a tail that shimmered in and out of existence. The flare trilled and danced around Kyo’s head.

“What the hell do you want?” Kyo swatted the creature but his claw- _hands_ passed through the non-corporeal being.

With a twirl, the flare shot past Kyo and whirled a couple of metres in front of him, made another sound, and vanished into the undergrowth beyond.

Kyo stumbled after the creature. He may have been dreaming. He may have finally snapped. But he was following a strange silver light that his crap brain had imagined, and Shigure would never let him live to forget it.

Kyo became more concerned the higher the altitude. Perhaps it was the lack of oxygen getting to his damn head. Perhaps he had collapsed at the base of the mountain and he had imagined going on this weird as hell spiritual journey bullcrap that also freaked him out. Because not only were the path and flare creature silver, but the plants and creatures were turning silver too.

He had only seen orange-gold fireflies. Even those were rare. But the ones that crossed the path like pedestrians crossing a road shone a platinum colour. Moss and lichens of all shades of grey huddled on trees. Silver ivy swam across tree branches. It was like fragments of starlight had dropped to earth.

Or Kyo had a fucking overpowered imagination to make up for the zero creativity he had possessed until then.

The wisp trilled again and bobbed lazily towards him.

“What’s left to lose. I’m insane enough for coming this far. Might as well finish what I’ve started,” Kyo sighed.

When the flare excitedly jumped up and down, Kyo told it to piss off so they could get this thing over with. Find this damn well, wake up from this nightmare and fall into the void so he no longer had to give a fuck.

The wisp darted around one rocky fragment. Kyo dredged up the last of his physical strength and skirted the corner, freezing in place.

The trees had vanished. In its place was a huge field of shining silver grass, glimmering and glittering. In the centre of the field was a well, where he could faintly see the wisp bobbing and waiting for him. Kyo touched a grass stalk and shook his hands. They felt wet. But there wasn’t any water. As if the liquid was invisible. Kyo shook his head. Of course it had to be water, the one thing he hated.

The unpleasant fatigue and unease he got around water didn’t wash over him however. The skies were now cloudy, but the puffy clouds were not harbouring rain. He took this as his one sign of good luck. Stepping forwards into the grass, he swore as he _sunk_ into the grass. He flailed but that only made him sink deeper faster. He hoisted his backpack up and stuffed a hand into his pocket, throwing the rat onto his shoulder. Better a bit of rough and tumble than dying.

Kyo grabbed onto the grass stalks. He continued sinking- his ankles submerged, his knees. However, when the heavy feeling reached its hips, it subsided, its pull increasing and decreasing, like the ocean tides moving in and out. He shuddered.

This wasn’t the ocean. This wasn’t the ocean. She’s not here. She’s not hurt.

_It’s all my fault._

_Not now,_ a bitter part of his brain pushed the thoughts away.

His legs were submerged in invisible water. He could wade through the ‘water’ so he grumbled, feeling wet-not-wet and ploughed on towards the centre. If he was unconscious at the base of the mountain, then perhaps it had started raining. Or some ass had poured water on his legs. His body gave no indication that he was waking up. And the aches scattered throughout his body were too realistic for his brain to conjure.

He had to keep going. He glanced down the mountain path, the path of silver looking like a string from this height. He didn’t think he had climbed that high, although he had; his gaze changed direction and he saw the base of the mountain, an ancient monolith, looming above him. A jagged peak was disguised with a thick veil of mist, barely discernible through the darkness.

The mist didn’t look natural, as if it had been expelled from a smoke machine. The kind of mist associated with fantasy and magic and that shit. But Kyo was trudging through an ocean of grass, miles away from the nearest body of water. An aminated flare had guided him up the higher portion of the mountain. And as he looked over towards where the town was, he saw nothing. Just a blank silver canvas of earth waiting to be painted.

Ok, this was fucking far enough.

Kyo pinched his arm. And twisted for good measure. He had to wake up and get the hell out of here. Discomfort was now bordering on concern for his sanity.

_You’ve got to keep going!_

A separate mental voice reminded him. Kyo was suddenly going to dismiss the concern, but then he gave a moment to consider. Why had he come this far? Why had he left Shigure’s house on such a whim? Why had he dragged his nemesis with him, who had hitherto proven to be more of a hindrance than a help? Why had he risked his life and sustained injury?

All on that one fleeting hope of finding his light. Of finding the sunshine.

Something gold and warm. Not something that was cold and silver.

Someone he cherished so much that he would conquer the ocean to see a smile on her face. A genuine ray of warmth.

 _That’s_ what he fought for.

So he had no excuse not to take another step. And another.

Head down, wading through the depths, enduring the pain, thinking of her.

That’s how he got through.

Kyo stumbled when he reached the other side (the other shore?) and the heavy damp-not-damp feeling receded from his clothing. Out of the grass field he emerged on a very shallow hill no larger than his bedroom. The wisp danced around his head, trilling around his head and giving him its congratulations (Kyo just let the creature do what it needed to do). The wisp hovered in front of Kyo and he lifted his palms to face the sky, where the wisp landed. Strands emerged from the wisp’s body, twirling like vines up his hands, working along his body and down his legs. He heard a weird crunch as the pain vanished from his leg and watched in amazement as the bruises along his arms knitted over. Healing that should have taken a few patient days resolving in seconds.

Kyo nodded in wordless and confused thanks to the wisp, not sure of what to say to a figment of his imagination. The wisp however was delight and cartwheeled into the air before diving into the depths of the well at the centre. Placing his hands on the outer edge of the well, he carefully peered into its depths. But there was no water; the well appeared empty.

Kyo grabbed a coin from his pocket and chucked it into the well. He didn’t hear any sound or echo. The coin kept falling, falling, falling as if straight to the centre of the earth. Kyo was learning to expect the unexpected and go along with his imagination for the ride at this point.

“Want to be a guinea pig, rat boy?” Kyo asked the rat kindly but got no reply. If a rat could look pale, his cousin did. Kyo put his backpack on the ground and placed the rat on top of it. It would be more comfortable than being thrown around in a pocket.

“I guess not,” Kyo sat down cross-legged. But he couldn’t sit still. He felt rejuvenated and ready to climb another mountain. And he also felt a bit stupid. He had followed the advice of wave girl’s brother and a random voice compelling him to abandon reason and run off into the night.

But there was a well at the top of the mountain, as Megumi had said. Kyo frowned in understanding. The well wasn’t just legend. It existed.

And if the Hanajima family had come here…

An idea wandered into Kyo’s mind. Before he dismissed it as dumb, he straightened his back into a meditation pose.

Kyo closed his eyes but quickly his gaze flitted from side to side. Nobody could witness what he was about to do.

He closed his hands into a prayer, “if you can make my wish come true, show yourself,” and begrudgingly added, “please.”

He was praying to a god, the very entity he despised the most.

He forced his face to soften. He focused on his breathing, the only sound that could be heard.

Nothing happened. What had Kyo been expecting. He opened his eyes and was about to pick up his bag when he saw a strange silver cat sitting beside the well.

 _“It took you long enough to open your eyes,”_ the cat’s voice rang clearly like a bell, even though the cat didn’t open its mouth and start talking. Eyes misted with age closed and the cat’s head lowered, as though he was already fed up with Kyo.

“Who the hell are you?” Kyo raised his fists. The cat ignored him and hopped down from its platform on the well softly onto the earth and pattered towards him.

 _“That doesn’t matter. I came became because you called. Isn’t that the custom? You humans are as rude as ever, it seems,”_ the cat jabbed Kyo in the arm with a paw, claws sheathed.

“You seem familiar…” Kyo said, cursing himself internally.

 _“I hope you were familiar with what a cat is_ ,” the feline said in its customary sarcastic tone, _“especially you.”_

“Who are you?”

 _“A selfish being,”_ the cat glanced at its paws, _“there’s no redemption for me. But you still have a chance. You must fulfil the wish of the spirits of the Juunishi. You must save the life of Tohru Honda.”_

“What the hell are you saying? Are you saying you’re the Cat?” Kyo’s hand went to clutch his shirt, wondering if the spirit was still residing in him.

 _“Yes, as sorts. A fragment, a memory, of another time,”_ the cat throws the words around.

“So I’m still cursed?” Kyo slumped. For a second he thought he was free of fucking freeloader along for the ride with his soul. Damn spirit.

_“Yes, but you will be for a long, long time if you cannot save her,” the cat whispered, staring at Kyo with eyes that appeared to see all._

“Wait, is she alive? Where is she? How did you get here?” Kyo’s questions were rapid fire and he lunged forward to pick up the cat, but the creature dodged his arms before Kyo could grip.

 _“In the world where I am from, your future, she is no longer with us. But I remembered a time when she was in your life- my life- and the other spirits are the same. We felt unsettled. A change, the stirrings of change. She might not be the key but I am sure she is a fragment to breaking the curse,”_ the cat said determinedly.

“She doesn’t know anything about the curse. I’m not gonna drag her into our hellhole! I’m not going to use her, not ever like Shigure and Akito and every other fucking person! She’s seen enough shit and it doesn’t matter because she’s-,” Kyo’s throat constricted. He couldn’t say the words, the force of denial so strong it could physically overpower him.

 _“Your paths are entwined, whether you like it or not. You have the choice to save her,”_ the cat came up towards Kyo again and swiftly cut across Kyo’s heart, the wound superficial but still drawing a trickle of blood.

“What the hell are you doing!” Kyo pushed the cat away but the cat’s reflexes were prepared, the creature lithe for how ancient its grey hairs and murky eyes implied.

 _“Carving the crest for you to pass,”_ the cat moved over to the rat and with a single claw etched the same mark over the rat’s heart.

“What the hell are you doing? Can you not bring her back? It’s your fucking fault for making us suffer. For making her suffer because of us! You’re the reason she’s dead!” Kyo coughed and wiped a hand with a fist. An enclosed, shaking and angry fist.

The cat sat down on its hunches, _“I’m sorry. You were never meant to be born to suffer. I just want freedom.”_

The creature’s gaze tilted longingly towards the heavens, where a couple of stars were beginning to shine through. Kyo found himself nodding with the cat. He resonated with that. He wanted freedom. It hurt being trapped with another entity inside of you. Dictating how you felt, controlled how you thought and changed you physically. Kyo felt restricted, like he had no control. No freewill of his own. He didn’t know if his actions were the spirit’s or his own.

He yearned for freedom. But he hadn’t thought about it from the cat’s point of view before. He didn’t like the spirit. It felt surprisingly good to be told it wasn’t just him that felt that way.

“But why do I have to do the work of the Juunishi? Why can’t the other spirits or lazy asses possessing them help?”

 _“Because you love her,”_ the cat said simply, _“and we want to ensure this mission doesn’t fail. You’ll only get one chance.”_

“Got it,” Kyo nodded. He was being given the chance to save her. As daft as the prospect seemed, who was he to refuse? Desperation led one to extremities. “So um… where am I going?”

Kyo was probably going to regret being on board with this craziness.

 _“You’ll pass into the past. To before,”_ if the cat could have smirked at Kyo, he was sure it would have.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Kyo muttered.

_“The threads of time will send you to key pivotal moments leading to the current timeline. Change that, and we’ll shift to a world where she’ll be saved. And perhaps, to a day when the curse will end.”_

“I don’t give a shit about the curse,” Kyo said solemnly, “as long as she’s ok, as long as she can smile, then I’ll do it.”

The cat nodded indifferently. The little bastard only cared about ending its own suffering. But that didn’t matter. Regardless of their motives, they both had the same goal- saving Tohru.

 _“I warn you however. You must accept reality. When you pass, she will be dead in the future. Until you can change all the pivotal moments- the checkpoints- the future will not change drastically enough to save her. Do not meddle in affairs that do not concern the mission,”_ the cat recited, bored, as if reading instructions from a manual.

“I’ll save her. I won’t let her stay behind. She promised to stay by our sides. She promised her mum she’d graduate from high school, dammit! She can’t quit. She can’t,” Kyo saw the cat sniffing around the backpack and then glance at the rat . Only part of Kyo hoped the cat would eat him. A small part.

“What about him? Can your wispy friend help him?”

The cat cocked its head, glancing at the rat for another moment before answering, _“his wounds are far too deep down to be healed with magic._ _It is up to you to save him. But most of all, he has to wish that for himself.”_

“Great,” Kyo rolled his eyes. Stuck with useless rat boy on this mission. Fantastic news to add to this impossible mission.

_“Are you prepared?”_

“Ain’t got anything left to lose,” Kyo admitted.

The cat purred and hopped onto the edge of the well.

“Oh fuck no,” Kyo shook his head, “I’ve gotta travel down… there?”

_“You must in order to pass.”_

“Your whole spiritual logic sucks, by the way. Change it,” Kyo said to the cat but still went over to grab his backpack and placed the rat on the side of the well, “come on, rat boy. We’re doing some skydiving.”

“How will we know what to do?” Kyo asked the cat.

The cat looked up at Kyo thoughtfully, _“I trust my instincts. They’ll keep you alive. Not that I have to worry with my nine lives.”_

“Is that true?” Kyo wondered as he shifted his legs over so they dangled into the well below, like a coal chute.

The cat waved its tail enigmatically and peered at Kyo then at the well.

“Impatient bastard,” Kyo huffed, “later. Hope I don’t see you again.”

 _“You likely will,”_ the cat broke the sad news but Kyo rolled his eyes, easing himself off the edge with his hands, launching him and Yuki from the security of solid ground beneath them.

Kyo closed his eyes, the cat becoming as small as a snowflake above him, vertigo and nausea climbing up through his throat, the imagine of a light and the sound of her laugh his anchor in this weightless void. Spinning, twisting and turning like a river, stomach knotting, like thread. The thread undoing, stretching back, unravelling, guiding him to the point where he had to pass, the time and place that would save her.

_He would not fail._

XxxxxX

The cat sat watching the two vessels fall and spin into the void, becoming specks before vanishing. He felt a slight breeze stir around him and he felt it ripple through his fur. Yes, it was done. The two were no longer existing in this time. Well, a part of them anyway.

The cat glanced at the two unconscious figures beside him. Unknown to them, but Kyo and Yuki Sohma had left their bodies behind, their souls surrendering and falling into the aether. Their bodies would be here, waiting for them. The cat assumed it would only take a few hours maximum before they returned from before to the present. He couldn’t say for certain. But he had always had a knack for guessing accurately. Luck, intuition, or both.

He wished them luck, for the sake of all.

 _The curse’s bonds transcend time. Perhaps that makes it a wish,_ the cat mused, preparing to stand guard over the sleeping forms of the cursed boys, the rippling silver grass and sparkling stars his only company on this summer’s night.


	4. Dive

Dreams of Paradise

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Dive

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_~Before~_

_Thud thud thud._

He could hear his heartbeat.

He instinctively reached for his wrist. The beads were in place next to the bead of shells he had made for himself. He took a breath. He didn’t want to make Mama upset. He knew she worried a lot about him. Kyo’s number one rule to follow was ‘never lose the beads’.

Lights from the distant city twinkled behind his curtains. The city was close. But he had never visited. He needed to be protected. He needed to be looked after. He was different and had to stay at home.

He had to wear the beads.

Kyo rubbed his eyes, feeling more awake. He was expected to rest until 6:30am so he had the night hours to draw in his notebook. He sketched out food he liked. He liked fruit and eggs. Eggs the most. If he could choose to draw one thing forever, it would be eggs.

He remembered when Mama had first served him eggs for breakfast.

_“Good and gold, just like you,”_ his mother’s voice had told Kyo. It was one of his earliest memories. Ever since that day, he had kept drawing eggs.

_Thud thud thud._

His heart was thudding. It was quickening. That only happened when he was really scared or ran too quickly. That worried Mama.

He couldn’t worry Mama.

He felt shivers run through his body. He looked to his left and looked to his right and even under his bed. Just in case the monsters were there. Papa had said the monsters were not real but he wanted to check. He didn’t want to worry anyone.

_Thud thud thud._

If he wasn’t careful, he would transform. And nobody would hear him from his tiny kitten body. he had once developed a fever overnight after playing in puddles in the garden until bedtime. He had awoken stuck under the covers, suddenly smaller, and hands had become paws. The more he had struggled, the tighter the blankets felt around his body, like rope being wrapped around his belly. Every breath had been harder to take.

He had cried out for help. It sounded like a mew. His voice was muffled under the blankets and he had had to cry feebly until morning until Mama had found him under the covers hardly able to breathe.

His mother had not slept for weeks after that. He had heard her pacing outside his bedroom door. And she had had dark circles beneath her eyes.

Papa gave him warning looks. He didn’t want to get a scolding from Papa. He had to make sure Mama didn’t worry. He was a good boy.

He had to begin breathing slowly. He pushed the blanket away from him. If he transformed then, he wouldn’t be trapped beneath miles of fabric. He placed a hand to his forehead. He had no fever.

He heard a creak. Kyo stiffened. His gaze went from the window to his bedroom door. Another creak.

Kyo located the source of the sound this time and he swallowed.

_Up._

A creak. And the ceiling above his head started to creak and crumble apart.

The ceiling was like wood in a fire. A log would burn and turn black in a fire. But if Kyo poked the log after, it crumbled to pieces. Kyo stared at the ceiling, dreading what was to come.

_Creak._ The white ceiling began to crumble inwards.

Kyo leapt off his bed and scrambled to get underneath the bed to where the monsters and shadows dwelt, preying on sleeping children. He found no monsters under there, which would have calmed him. The creaking had stopped. Was there a typhoon? A hurricane? Were Mama and Papa alright?

He couldn’t hide under the bed forever.

He pushed out with two arms and two legs out from under the bed. His eyes were fixed on the door to run to his parents. He needed to make sure they knew he was safe. That he had his beads. He couldn’t make her worry. No tears. No screams.

Kyo’s head was thudding and a sweep of cold wind rushed in through the crevices of his clothing. He instinctively froze and looked up.

Where the ceiling to his room had completely vanished, blown away like dandelion seeds in the spring. He gasped. He could see night sky straight up. But grey bricks had been built above his room, creating extra storeys. The bricks rose and rose high towards the night sky, coiling around like snakes, and he was at the bottom of a tower.

Small at first, he saw a figure as tiny as an ant falling. Becoming larger and larger.

_“WATCH OUT!”_ the voice screamed from above.

A deeper voice, like his father. Hatori’s voice had become deeper. It was like his and the next time he had seen the zodiac dragon, it was like Hatori had a permanent cough.

Kyo had seconds to register the orange hair, shorts and angry eyes of the older boy, arms flailing and failing to right himself, crashing to earth-

XxxxxX

-And Kyo gasped, vertigo and dizziness making stars dance before his eyes. He coughed and swallowed the bile rising in his throat.

He placed his hands to his forehead, dripping profusely in sweat.

The bile continued to tickle at his throat. It was too late. He rolled over to his side and heaved up his stomach contents but that did little to relieve the anxiety he felt pounding through his veins. It was a feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time. Anger was the manifest of his uncertainty. A fire in his fingertips that could not be quashed without a few hours of martial arts, running or punching. His fire was concentrated throughout his chest and gut like a swarm of wasps stinging organs and tissues that protected it.

He swore under his breath. He needed a glass of water and fresh air.

As he forced his shaking legs to move with little success, Kyo suddenly heard the creaking of footsteps from behind the bedroom door.

His bedroom door.

_His_ bedroom door _from more than ten years ago._

Kyo grabbed the blankets and pulled them up towards his chest. He placed his head on one pillow, chucked another on the ground to cover up the vomit, and closed his eyes.

Through eyes open a crack, Kyo saw a figure open the door ajar, peep through, stare at him and survey the room and return the door to its closed position. Kyo waited until the pitter patter of footsteps had retreated down the hallway.

He opened his eyes and rubbed them furiously. His heart was pounding.

The last thing he remembered was falling.

Falling down through a well.

Falling down based on the advice of a decrepit cat to return to _before._

Return to the past to save her.

Kyo gasped, clutching his chest. He willed his heartrate to slow down.

The heartrate of a child panicking about his mother finding some way to worry and his father punishing him with a slap to the wrist calling him a fucking monster for ruining their lives-

Kyo blinked, realising tears were welling in his eyes.

And that’s when he felt it.

A shy and gentle spark deep within his mind. A naïve and pure boy, a good, good boy who could never please because of the shit he had been born into.

That’s what had happened. Kyo had been falling down the well when he had finally glimpsed a room. He had had barely seconds to register what was going on before he had crashed and passed into the past, possessing himself. Younger Kyo’s soul shuddered in the background. Kyo wasn’t used to this sentimental shit but he muttered a few inadequate phrases: ‘it’s ok, kid, sit and hold tight. This freakish nightmare will be over before you know it’.”

Younger Kyo seemed to believe that. This was a labyrinth of a dream. He could sleep it off. The anxiety waves dissipated, retreating ocean waves, and Kyo was surprised he’d been able to calm a child.

It was him he was calming however. He knew what the kid was feeling.

Kyo was in agreement not to let this nightmare carry on for the either of them. He scrambled out of bed and hurried to the colourful red calendar hanging up above his desk. Apart from the calendar and a single plushie, his room was bare and spartan; fewer things to hurt Kyo, fewer things to taint him further.

His mother treated him like rotting meat that could be fixed by shoving it into the fridge.

It was summertime. He was four years old and Tohru had had her fifth birthday in spring.

He hadn’t been thinking clearly when he had passed. It was an elaborate dream his brain had manifested as a warped coping mechanism. But here he was, the place so familiar and clear. Down to the arrangement of his pens. His memory was not this meticulous. He must have really time-travelled or whatever the hell this was.

He’d made it. That’s what mattered. His weak childhood body wouldn’t be able to perform the acrobatic stunts and feats of strength he could now, but equally he could sneak and crawl into places at this height.

Gazing around at the present-in-the-past, Kyo stiffened his shoulders and fixed his gaze on the bedroom window. This was Kyo’s first checkpoint. He had to change something here, something pivotal to the timeline. And then what? Would he pass to after? Would he live out his childhood again waiting for the next checkpoint in the timeline to show itself? He didn’t know and that pissed him off, although he couldn’t focus on that.

To know how to save her, he’d have to find her first.

Before he’d become a ‘wild spirit’ as Master described him in his late childhood years, young Kyo had been obedient until his mother’s… accident. That happened in the autumn of that year.

_Don’t think about it. Move forward,_ his mind insisted.

To which Kyo was happy to comply with.

Young Kyo was obedient, meaning there were no locks on the window. Kyo shoved an internal apology to his younger self for ruining his good reputation. If he was discovered missing, his father would get angry. There was no other way to save Tohru. His parents wouldn’t listen. They didn’t understand how.

Zodiac parents rejected their child or were overprotective. The parents of the Cat were possessive, to spare them the shame of raising a monster even amongst the Juunishi’s freakishly low standards.

He spared a thought to rat boy. He must have passed too. He would be all cosied up in his mansion right now, surrounded by family that doted on him. He’d probably sleep through the whole affair. Kyo didn’t have the time to worry about that burden.

Kyo unlatched the window and leapt from the window. Luckily his family lived on a one floor ground storey building or he would have encountered some problems. Four-year old Kyo had a righting reflex but lacked the strength to brace himself for that great a fall.

Kyo brushed the dirt from his pyjama trousers and hurried into the darkness of the garden. He pushed a tilted fence panel, wood grating his skin, and ignored the trickle of blood falling down them. He rotated his ankle and found it had still healed. Then he realised this body had not endured that injury yet. He didn’t have the scar across his knuckle from that one fight with Haru. Kyo pushed forward. He had arrived in the early hours of the morning, an uncertain and ominous time. He didn’t know what was going to happen.

His instincts quietly insisted him to hurry in the back of his mind. One of the few mental probes he would obey.

He broke into a barefooted run along the pavement, darting and weaving out of the menacing glare of the streetlamps. His house was situated at the end of the avenue furthest from the Sohma estate. The outside house that was the most outside. It was only fitting treatment for the Cat’s family. Another goddamn tradition.

His first house was also closest to the city and suburbs. But the Sohmas were a rich family and knew it; the place where Tohru lived in the flat with her mother was on the other side of town, a shabby and rundown area known for gangs and high crime rates. Tohru’s mum didn’t have much choice. Her income could pay for rent and bills of that tiny apartment but not a lot else. It was better than living on the streets, Kyo thought darkly.

His eager mind neglected to remember he had little legs with developing muscles. He had sprinted down a couple of streets before he was panting with his hands on his knees, reclaiming his breath. He could have sprinted this town twice before feeling the physical exertion. And now he could barely manage a couple of streets?

There wouldn’t be buses or trains running at this time. And at his age, they’d see a young child without a guardian. The first thing they would do is call his parents or the police. Likely both.

The houses here were few and far-between up the hill, the wealthier part of town. Gangs and thugs didn’t claim territory here. It was safe enough that cops didn’t have to patrol the streets. It also meant the damn residents were too trusting. The Sohmas were the exception, but for good reason, even if that was only known by people aware of the curse’s existence.

Kyo remembered seeing neighbourhood kids playing on the streets, running around playing tag, riding bikes and chatting nonstop about the latest video games released.

And then Kyo’s eyes widened as an idea came to mind. He grinned. He wasn’t an ideas factory. He wasn’t an academic either. Sure, he could get decent grades but that required discipline and study. But his brain cells connected dot-to-dot, concocting his plan.

The children rode bikes… the neighbours were too damn trusting for their own good. Kyo had to exploit that goodness.

He reached the nearest house and scaled the fence, perching precariously on top and travelled around the side of the house. He avoided the front gate in case of security alarms. Nobody cared about their back gardens though. Again, this neighbourhood was dumb and trusting. Kyo saw the bikes resting against the side of the house and leapt down to stand next to them. Two were huge and the only one his side was a pink bicycle with pompoms to the side. The stabilisers had been removed and placed next to the larger two bikes.

Kyo stared at the bike, imagining it could stare back. He grabbed the handlebars and dragged it across the garden to the back gate, which he unlocked with a key hidden in a conveniently-placed flowerpot next to the gate. People were dumb because they made the same dumb choices again and again. No matter the time, no matter the place.

The owner of the bike would miss it, sure. But they would have it replaced with another bike.

Kyo’s need for the pink bike with pom poms was greater than theirs.

He heaved his aching ass onto the bike, kicked off the ground to give him some propulsion and began to cycle. The street was flat. He turned left at the silent crossroad and turned left again. He then saw the city proper, always hustling, never settling down to sleep like the surrounding suburbs. Kyo felt his centre of gravity shift forwards as the bike started being tugged towards the ground as though it had a will of its own. The seashell bracelet he had jingled like bells.

The tugging turned into a pulling and before Kyo could brake, the bike was accelerating down the hill, tears forming in his eyes from the rush. The world was a water coloured muddle of silver streetlamps and grey houses. Faster and faster the bike propelled, as if a jet engine had been installed into it somehow.

Installed into those sinister pompoms.

As the terrain plateaued like those graphs in science classes, Kyo’s grip on the bike tightened. The brakes screeched and the bike ground to a halt, the momentum nearly throwing Kyo forwards.

He rubbed his sore lower back and surveyed his surroundings. He’d made it to the outer ring of the city. He found his bearings and was about to push his bike towards the Honda apartment when he paused.

The flat would be empty.

Or filled with different tenants.

Kyo didn’t know.

But he remembered Tohru telling him she had lived with her mum at her grandfather’s house. On the other side of town from Shigure’s. But not from here! He was close, a ten minute walk away from the old man’s place. He looked begrudgingly at the bike. Halve that time if he could suffer through the pom poms.

He chose to suffer.

He darted around the suburbs with stubborn grace, noting the scythe half-moon grinning in the sky, sharp like cat teeth, or cat claws. The lights boughed towards the road, the closest relative to trees in these parts.

Getting lost and wandering these streets in a muddle the first time proved beneficial; this time he worked his way through the streets with ease, his legs guiding him, more muscle memory than factual recollection. And before he knew it, he was standing in front of the Honda family home, slightly smaller, a time before the renovations.

To a young boy, the house looked imposing. Kyo rested the bike against the wall and clambered up the outer wall, sitting comfortably after finding a perch. He had plenty of practice; when he had been a couple of years older, he had started to question why he was a monster despite being a ‘good boy’. Why his mother did what she did despite him doing his best. Choking down those feelings, swallowing the bitterness and anger like bad-tasting medicine.

Master had taken him by the hand and taken him away from the children. Kyo had cried and refused to speak to Master after that. However, at his next training session at the dojo, Kyo saw he was sharing a lesson with other Sohma children. Even members of the zodiac! Kyo had not spoken to Master but had allowed his teacher to mess his hair a little.

Those feelings tickled at the back of his throat. For a moment, he thought he wouldn’t be able to look down into the garden. He wouldn’t see what he was looking for. He would instead see Sohma children playing without him, unaware or disgusted by his presence. And he would be inclined to run away. And not look back.

He looked down.

There were no children playing. This wasn’t the gran Sohma estate. This was an ordinary house with ordinary people, sleeping at this time in the morning, he hoped. He hoped young Tohru was having sweet, blissful dreams, but an unsettling truth made Kyo assume she was not.

And that was why he had passed to this segment in time.

The lights in the house were switched off. But before Kyo could relax, a single light turned on. Not a house light but a torch, flickering, expanding and contracting like a ghostly breath against the curtains in an upstairs bedroom. Kyo assumed this was where Tohru was staring. There was silence. The light extinguished and the front door creaked open.

Kyoko Honda moved with a swiftness. Kyo ducked out of sight in time. But Tohru’s mother noticed neither him nor the bike. Her eyes were fixed on a point in the distance, tunnel vision, and an unknown force driving her forwards.

She’d left the front door open.

Kyo knew what happened when Tohru was left alone. Even though he itched to chase after Kyoko, he couldn’t leave the young Tohru alone.

He slipped up towards the front door and opened it, closing it nearly fully behind him. He left a crack open so he could retreat without setting off alarms.

The hallway was quiet. Even Kyoko’s shoes were present in the hallway. Kyo shuddered. The woman was impulsive, charismatic. But she had had that haunted look on his face that was familiar, almost personal to Kyo. He shook his head. He had made his choice.

And in this situation, he argued there was not a right choice to make.

He tiptoed his way up the stairs and with barely letting his toes touch the ground, he skipped towards Tohru’s room, like he was playing a children’s game of the floor being lava.

Without knocking, Kyo slid the bedroom door open. There were two futons spread on the floor, one with covers thrown off and the other bundled around a figure, snoring lightly in her sleep.

Kyo carefully tread towards her. She wasn’t a heavy sleeper and woke to moderate chaos occurring at Shigure’s. But she had slept through her mother leaving the house…

Kyo heard her voice too late to realise her snoring at stopped.

“Mum?” the voice croaked. Her sweet, sweet voice.

“She had to go somewhere,” Kyo croaked back, his voice all high-pitched. He brought a hand quickly to his throat, where there was an obvious lack of an Adam’s apple. Something else he would have to get used to. It wasn’t temporary.

Everyone grew up. Even monsters.

“Where did she have to go? Is it time for her to go to work?” the young girl pondered. Her eyes were still closed. She yawned, on the cusp between reality and dream.

She didn’t sound like the Tohru he knew. She sounded like a child. And for some reason, this surprised Kyo.

“She’ll be back for you soon,” Kyo found himself saying.

“You promise?”

Before he could reply, he could hear her begin snoring, although it was muffled.

And Kyo realised she was crying in her sleep, clutching an imaginary toy she did not have, “don’t go. I’m sorry. I’ll be better. I’ll be a good girl. I’m so sorry…”

Her tone had changed. The mannerisms, the apologising. Doing something wrong when Kyo was certain she was guilty of nothing. The gears in his mind began turning.

Kyo wouldn’t let her be alone.

“I promise,” he vowed and he slipped off the seashell bracelet, his one worthless childhood treasure. He laid the item next to her pillow. If she tossed and turned in her sleep, she could crush the simple gift and find saltwater shards by her side instead. But for now, the shards weren’t broken.

He retreated the way he came. Down the hall, he heard a strange wheezing sound that then drifted back into silence. Thank goodness Tohru had not inherited that awful snoring from her grandfather. Shigure would have thought twice about letting Tohru live in the house if that was the case.

Instead she snored quietly. Even in sleep, she had not wanted to be a burden.

Kyo clenched his fists around the bannister and swiftly descended the stairs two at a time. His stubby legs struggled to keep up, but Kyo didn’t bother with the bottom stairs and leapt down, landing without a sound. He put his shoes on and shut the door behind him. Tohru was on her own; his gaze kept flitting up to her dark bedroom, wishing he could sit on the windowsill and guard her from the cruel, tainted world that had taken too much from her. He wanted to protect her, to stop the hurt and the pain that she would inevitably feel.

Without that, she wouldn’t be her. Kyo had no right to take that away from her. What little belonged to Tohru was Tohru’s. Knowing her, she would treasure the briny bracelet and put it on a pedestal of her most prized possessions. That’s the precious space cadet she was.

But she needed her mum.

_She’ll be back for you soon._

But what if she wasn’t. What if she had left the house intending to never come back.

He was overthinking this.

But he remembered hearing _her_ leave. Kyo had hurried to the front door. His mother had not taken her shoes with her either. She had left the house abruptly without saying a word. She had not had any plans. The maids were baffled. They considered contacting his father at work. Kyo was ushered back to his room where he had resumed drawing eggs.

The next human contact he had was his father slapping him around the face and screaming at him. Kyo had not heard the words. He’d looked confused. He had looked around for his mother. But he’d only seen the maids crying in the corner.

A piece in Kyo’s narrative had been ripped out. But he had found a home with Master. As had Tohru at Shigure’s. But not at her age.

Her grandfather was a nice enough guy. He’d take care of Tohru. It was her judgemental family. Judgemental over the age gap between Tohru’s parents. The snide comments, the sneers, the looking down, the constant looking down. You tried to struggle, tried to rise, but got pushed back down. After Tohru was a doormat. A dummy and a doormat. But if her mother… would Tohru be herself in the future? Or would she become a bitter, seething mess.

More demons to fight.

More hell to break.

A smile laced with a lifetime’s worth of sadness.

A curled fist slammed into a wall.

Sadness or anger. All hidden beneath her smile.

Kyo grabbed the pompom bike and started peddling before he righted himself. His gaze was fixed on the Purple Lakehouse near the city centre. The last streets of the suburbs drifted by like flying birds, streetlamps a ghostly mirage. Kyo paused once he reached a crossroads. To the right the land climbed uphill, leading to the shopping district and some local takeout restaurants. Shigure had strategically chosen his house to overlook the district over that part of town, the bastard.

Ahead was the workforce’s migratory route to the business district. His high school was tucked snugly on the periphery in a quieter area. The Sohmas owned 10% of the high-rise buildings that glittered in the darkness like lighthouses. And to the left of the path the tourist district boomed in bright colours, flashing orange and yellow flowers to draw in innocent tourists. It was also home to the infamous red-light district, the rumble of motorcycles a consistent hum.

A four-year-old child should not have taken the left path. But Kyo had the pompoms. He would be alright.

XxxxxX

_Every city needed a water attraction,_ some sensible political bastard had thought twenty years prior. Boating, kayaking, water sports, a fantastic way to bring revenue. The slum buildings would simply disappear into the background. The result was a lake house situated next to a red-light district. With time, like detritus, the red light had grown and manifested into an ensemble of buildings attracting ruffians and misfits alike, society’s trash, moths to flame. Bric-a-brac stores selling useless wares with sloppy logos decorated the winding serpentine streets leading from the district to the lake. Kyo didn’t know this part of town. He didn’t care to come here. He hated water and he hated people. The combination of both was a better deterrent than any to keep him away. His friends were decent people, didn’t take drugs and the sort.

The district didn’t scare him, but hell it made him wary.

Despite the darkness, bright lights flashed in his face as he cycled past, sticking to the shadows. Nobody took any notice, too oblivious in their own business to consider caring. Sirens blared. Motorcycles roared to life. Kyo could hear cats yowling in a distant alleyway. Something about some tom stepping on another tom’s turf. Kyo shrugged and carried on. The rest was background chatter.

The little muscles he possessed ached. They weren’t designed for the winding hills and slopes of night-time cycling. Kids were meant to run around a playground for a few hours, pass out from exhaustion and start the cycle again tomorrow. Kyo’s muscles were propelled by adrenaline. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t listen to the chatter and he sure as fuck couldn’t give up here.

If he thought what was happening was going to happen, there wasn’t a second to lose.

* * *

Kyoko Honda could tell that this morning’s sunrise would be beautiful.

The spot had not changed in six years.

She remembered warm hands slipping into her own cold, numb ones. A space between her and Katsuya had closed when he had stepped closer to her. The biting winter air was snuffed out like a candle, replaced with warmth and light.

The migratory birds had long left the suburbs until next spring, although the few songbirds that remained sang their merry hearts out, dispelling the imminent gloom the winter would usher.

She had felt a strange pull to turn around, to the lights and sounds of the place she had grown up; the noisy streets, the lashing of rain on her back when she had ridden her butterfly; sips of cold coffee under subways. A place of her past. She had wanted to look back. She knew the alleys; she knew the rules. If she had wanted to, she could have waltzed up to a contact’s house, stepped inside and forgotten about the world outside. Some knew of her betrayal. Others were too oblivious to care.

The hand that had gripped hers held on a little tighter.

“There’s no going back, only forward,” he had whispered.

“Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular. It is my honour to follow your lead,” that alluring voice spoke in the stillness.

“Not a saint,” she had retorted but fallen silent as the first rays of lake spilled onto the lake, milky at first, condensing on the lake’s surface like cappuccino froth, bleeding colour into the water. Kyoko had sighed as the breath she had been holding evaporating, a darkness abated, and she had held onto the love of her life and dreamed about the future.

Maybe not the most romantic date to some. To her, it was the little bit of perfect she had needed.

Her legs had brought her to the same spot as before. She felt the emptiness of inside welling up and seeping around her, a bubble of numbness. She waited for the grip on her hand to tighten. She waited for the bubble to pop.

Waited and _waited._

* * *

The boy shuddered, a little cold and very afraid.

He’d woken up to the spasm of his chest, expecting the spasm to erupt into hacking coughing. He’d splutter louder than a volcanic eruption. He’d learnt about them at school. During the lunch break one of his friends had made up a game called ‘Volcano’. Someone would count to ten, the volcano, and erupt, chasing after everyone else running away.

Yuki didn’t understand the point of the game. Everyone had laughed. He had found a smile creeping up on his face too. Before long, he was a victim to the fun too.

His chest tightened. He clenched his fists. Breathing out, he relaxed, the sound of laughter in the back of his mind. He was about to close his eyes and go back to sleep (his mother had told him to get a good night’s sleep as he was expected to be on his best behaviour come the morning for a very special occasion), when he felt his tummy drop.

He stared up at the ceiling, watching as something- _someone_ \- fell, arms aloft, like a bird that couldn’t fly. Young Yuki blinked as he collided with the figure, a bright light flashing before everything became dark again.

XxxxxX

Frost.

He felt so cold.

It was supposed to be summer. Wasn’t it? He didn’t remember. He didn’t care. Everything was cold to him now. Anything he touched would fracture and break. What little warmth he let into his life would melt his heart and he would break.

He had to remain cold and frozen. The springtime would melt his ice and the little damaged parts he had tried to salvage would shatter.

Let nothing in, let nothing out.

Breathing in and breathing out was all he could manage.

Student Council President?

Reconciling with his idiot brother?

Forgiving?

Yuki didn’t have the strength to give an answer. A plant, wilting. No matter how much sunlight went in; if it froze, it died.

Perhaps that’s where the light was. In paradise.

Some disinterested part of his brain surveyed the room. He remembered falling. Falling down a well. The stupid cat was there. Was this part of a dream? A nightmare? Had he finally fallen into hell?

It was dark down here.

Was he getting closer to her this way?

Rin had warned him. Not to lean on people, not to use those people too good for this world. And what had he done? Spilled out his insecurities and secrets to Miss Honda. She had listened with that patient smile and encouraged him to carry on. When he felt in doubt, he would imagine her smile or listen to her humming while she was washing up. He’d imagine her scrunched up face as she concentrated on her studying. She had always said Yuki had looked so natural with a book in his hand. Shigure had told him he would be a novelist in the making, a new apprentice. Before he could have talked anymore, Yuki and Kyo had shut the damn dog up while Miss Honda had squealed in oblivious shock.

But was she oblivious? How much of what she did was to protect the ones she loved, the people that mattered the most to her in her life?

How could he have been so oblivious to her pain and suffering? That’s what happened with selfish people. They consumed all the love and light in the world until there was nothing left but suffocating blackness.

He finally understood Rin’s words. Not that it mattered. It was too late for anything.

Yuki had watched the others at the funeral. Some of the Juunishi had been consumed by a fire, a need to hurry on and do something avenging, enacting heaven’s will on earth. A passion to keep going because the moment they stopped would be the moment they burnt.

Others drowned. They were lost at sea with the guilt. Not doing enough. Not being there. Being at the wrong place at the wrong fucking time. Swarming around Akito out of fear of disobedience. Fear for her being hurt (why couldn’t he have taken a fucking stand and been fucking brave for five damn seconds).

Yuki had drowned for so long he had frozen. He wasn’t seeking anything. Neither seeking a respite from remorse nor chasing a hopeless dream.

He had accepted his fate. He spent his time thinking and thinking, scrambling for an answer when he hadn’t been a selfish fucking arsehole. When he had put himself into her shoes, thought about her emotions, her situations. When he had considered her feelings out of a place of genuine care, rather than helping her for the fucking feeling of satisfaction? Feeling like he was a damn human being for once after helping her. Helping her for his own gain. His own morale boost. But for her?

When had he done anything for her?

The school’s fan club called him a prince. But wasn’t his whole life a façade?

When had he become frost? It wasn’t after her death. It wasn’t after the funeral. It was the minute he had been fucking born.

Those things circulated in his body, carried alongside his blood.

He wanted to understand. So that never happened again. He didn’t want to hurt anyone else. Words cut deeper than knives. Ice blazed brighter than fire.

Fire was reckless, thoughtless. Ice was calculating, meticulous.

He was cold.

Cold despite the constant hum of cicadas accompanying the summer on its travels. So much noise from such small, insignificant lifeforms. Singing their songs, waiting to be heard through the din of life. A small boy reaching out as humanity raced by, leaving him behind.

( _And how she had been left to die out at sea._ )

In his midnight ocean of his mind, it was impossible to discern when he was dreaming. His waking day had become irrelevant. It was at night, when nightmare displaced dream, that he would feel the guilt creep back to him. A fresh bout of ice- a memory of her smiling, another time he had let her down- seeped into his body and mind- and he would feel the cold trickle in. He’d sweat and plead and beg, reaching out blindly through the ocean.

He achieved nothing. He’d wake up, near dead, survive through the day and return to his unfulfilled wishes overnight.

So was this another dream?

He’d dreamt of his childhood before, of tears slipping down his cheeks meeting someone he loved and repulsed; he dreamt of running through fields underneath the trees, laughter as bright as the sun; and he dreamt of holding someone’s hand, soft and precious. Sometimes it took a minute, sometimes it took an eternity for the coldness to seep in, for the ocean waves to roar and obliterate his happy dream.

He was still at the age when he’d given a shit about things. Cleaning and being neat for one. That habit had slipped in his early teens. His room was a traditional Japanese bedroom. There was a futon spread across the floor. He was propped against a chair and despite the intense heat, blankets were swathed around him, cocooning him. His back was resting against a couple of large, feather-filled pillows. That’s why his breaths were coming easier.

But he’d never dreamt of cicadas before. He pushed himself upright, a couple of coughs issuing from his tiny body, unperturbed. He’d had worse.

A recent event in his mind- whether fictional or real he couldn’t remember- crept into his mind. Being taken into the mountains and thrown into a well. Was that a dream too?

_“You have the choice to save her,”_ Yuki had heard those words too. He brought his hands to his chest where a cat had scratched him as a rat but on this body there were no scars. A blank canvas. A fresh start.

There had been a cat. A cat that could talk…

The logistics didn’t matter. Saving her did.

He had not tried to save her in life. But in death, in his dreams, he always did. She was always there somehow. And Yuki tried each time to protect Miss Honda from the vengeful hand of Akito, from the judging laughter of the kids that teased her, protect her from the ocean spilling from all four corners of Yuki’s dream. And every time he would watch her drown and he could do nothing to save her.

But if he didn’t stop trying, what else could he do?

She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t she wasn’t _she wasn’t._

Naïve fool.

He hurried to put on shoes and exited his childhood home carefully. A timid voice in the back of his mind was confused, but Yuki had to go.

Chances were the stupid cat was around and if it was true, if this wasn’t a dream, Miss Honda was here too.

He could save her.

…

_Footsteps were heard pounding along the paths, yet no words were uttered yet. They watched in fascination, drawn to the perplexity of this boy. Thousands of pairs of eyes glittered in the alleyways, in the crevices of abandoned buildings and derelict destinations, all drawn to the boy running towards a house, avoiding the streetlights, looking very close to falling over._

_They scuttled to meet him. They were being summoned. He needed their help. And the rats were compelled to answer._


End file.
